The poem
Oh, to love what is lovely, and will not last! What a task to ask of anything, or anyone, yet it is ours, and not by the century or the year, but by the hours. One fall day I heard above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was a flock of snow geese, winging it faster than the ones we usually see, and, being the color of snow, catching the sun so they were, in part at least, golden. I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us as with a match, which is lit, and bright, but does not hurt in the common way, but delightfully, as if delight were the most serious thing you ever felt. The geese flew on, I have never seen them again. Maybe I will, someday, somewhere. Maybe I won't. It doesn't matter. What matters is that, when I saw them, I saw them as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.
I came across the poem snow geese for the first time yesterday 14 Feb. I loved it on first hearing and then when I read it myself a few times, I thought it was just amazing. I thought 'wow' what an amazing poem. The words 'what matters is that, when I saw them, I saw them, ' just blew me away. It just brought home to me about living in the present moment. In that moment the beauty of the snow geese just captures living in that moment in time. It did not matter if the person never saw them again, the memory would last forever. I just loved it. Cathy