The Knowing

Mother sat in a wicker chair on the doorstep of her cottage, rug over knees, wrapped in a shawl, looking up at the sky. She’d had a comfortable summer, her appetite had improved, and she rarely had to hide blood-streaked mucus in her handkerchief. Now she was constantly coughing and nodding off. We argued about her sitting outside in the damp autumn air.

‘I want to catch the last rays of sunshine!’ she said. ‘I love this time of year, have always known that something told the wild geese it was time to fly off over the salt marshes. I hope it will tell me too.’

At that moment, a skein of geese swept overhead – and then disappeared towards the sea.

‘Now it’s time to get you inside by the fire with a cup of tea,’ I said.

But she too had flown away.

Kim M. Russell, 6th May 2024

Image by Richard Lee on Unsplash

On the first Monday in May, I’m hosting at the dVerse Poets Pub, where we are writing Prosery, a very short piece of prose or flash fiction that tells a story with a beginning, middle and end, and can be in any genre. It has a limit of 144 words, with an additional challenge to hit 144 exactly.

The special thing about Prosery is that we’re given a complete line or two from a poem, which must be included somewhere in our prose, within the 144-word limit and in the order in which the lines were written. We may add or change punctuation, but not add words in between the given ones.

I found the poem I chose for this prompt in the bank of poetry used by the annual poetry performance competition, Poetry by Heart. It’s by Rachel Lyman Field, an American writer who, until she was ten years old, apparently couldn’t read, so she listened to plays, poems and stories and learned them by heart.

The lines I chose are from a poem called ‘Something told the wild geese’, which is about the moment, the turning point of the year, when wild geese sense that they must fly south and migrate to warmer lands for the winter:

“Something told the wild geese
It was time to fly.”

26 thoughts on “The Knowing”

  3. Kim, I love what you did with the line. Really tender metaphor for death <3 

    I see we also both used “skein” for the geese. I looked up group of geese and that option sounded good to me. 

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  5. If you can’t keep them here, then go with them. We have many breeds of ducks to come, now geese. Some stay the winter; others go further south. I liked your tale of the student going to London by competing and winning the local competition and earning a chance to London for competition with other local winners. I taught business and sponsored the business club. Then I went to wherever the National competitions were. We generally took home a lot of prizes. 

    ..

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    1. Thank you, Jim. I love watching wild birds, and we’re lucky to have so many not only in our garden but on the river and the Norfolk Broads. I’m glad you liked the true story about my student reaching the Poetry By Heart finals. The competition is still going,

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  12. How incredibly peaceful her journey will be … floating high above … geese her steady, stalwart escorts. I love your prose, Kim. Love it.

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