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Show MIGRATION You say it is extraordinary to have heard the migration of geese at night, to have left my bed, run into the yard naked, and watched them go, dozens of pumping moons over the homes of neighbors. But I tell you, they were there. And there was another also who saw - a child at a window, her hair lit by a small lamp somewhere in that warm room. She watched quietly and with no wonder to speak of; just her small hand, palm up against the pane, the fingers loosely arched as if she had released those great white birds and ordered their going herself. It was the sight of me that surprised her. The sight of a woman standing straight up in moonlight, straight up with no clothes and hair that blew uncontrollably. Of the geese, I am sure. Of the child's small fingers reaching, in silhouette, to her lips in a kiss, I am uncertain. What I did know, when the light in the window went suddenly out, was that the child would remember nothing. Or if she did she would not tell, because she knew, even at that age when one is expected to believe every lie, that no one would believe her. So she slept just as I slept again that night, just as everyone slept that night, letting the stars pin our eyes shut and prick at the landscape of our dreams, |