Migration

A Poem of Thoughts on Passover/Migration

Have you seen those images
of the demoiselle cranes
crossing the Himalayas?
50,000 cranes ascend 30,000 feet in the air
to summit the great Annapurna range.
Acoss those mountains is food,
and it isn’t anywhere else.
Did you hear the sound of them?
All the way up in the sky,
and such noisy talk they make
while their wings paddle
the tons of atmosphere
blowing off the mountain crests!
One could hear them coming from miles away.
And how about the broad, spotted layer
their bodies form
between land and sky?
The beauty of a pattern like that, I believe,
has its origins in the aesthetic of comfort:
One being fills a piece of this intrepid space
for another.
One for the other,
and so on.
That is migration.
And do you know that cranes dance?

I am certain that if you pay attention
to the small conversation
at your dinner table tonight,
not to the words,
but to the sound of voices hovering,
to the motion of hands lifting forks,
passing bread,
you'll witness the way
we lift each other away from our bodies,
rise with each other higher
than we can actually go
in the hourly increments of time
given to us each night.

I am sure that we are migrating now,
between that original body from which we were born
and someplace warmer,
less dire and hungry.

But oh, isn't the journey breathtaking?
Don't I love each of you for keeping me company
on this trip we must make?