Martin Espada After the Goose that Rose Like the God of Geese
b'Bereavement brings all kinds of pressures. This poem by Mart\\xedn Espada starts off with a grief-to-do-list: a phone call, a flight, a blizzard, cremations, shipments of ashes, memorial services. After all of this \\u2014 in a first stanza that builds in intensity \\u2014 he needs to be reconnected with something tangible. He goes to feed birds at the park, and among the birds is a goose, like a god of the geese, who shrieks with all the emotion stored in him. This goose is like a priest of grief for Mart\\xedn Espada, voicing the sounds of all that he\\u2019s feeling.'