The Nature of Time

As I settle more deeply into fall, I've been reflecting on how I mark the passage of time and how time marks me. When I set out to describe my sense of time in the simplest way I could find, this poem arrived, bringing with it memories of a place where I lived thirty years ago.
Photo by Barry Troutman

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Telling Time at Lake Chaffee

Once the geese came back, once they floated
along the edge where melting ice gave way

to open water, I knew the lake wouldn't
freeze over again. When I heard them call

quietly back and forth in the dark, a mute
ring of moonlight circling each one, I knew

spring would come, moss-lush and blushing
with buds. I knew summer by goslings

in full-fluff, sheltered among adults, paddling
the leeside of the islands. One October I 

stood on a ladder to hang storm windows,
and their V passed low overhead. I couldn't

see them slicing through thick fog, but I
knew the rush of their wingbeats as they left.