It's another winter, another year. So many things in nature shift with the seasons. Geese remind us of the coming cold as they honk their way south. The geese have moved to warmer climates by now, which is a good thing. We have had some record cold temps lately. I know they’ll be back in spring but as I watched them take off, I kind of missed them already.
Ferida Wolff's Backyard: Geese and Growth
Ferida Wolff is the author of 20 children’s books and three essay books, her latest being The Story Blanket (Peachtree Publishers) and Is a Worry Worrying You? (Tanglewood Books)>
Editor's Note: We found a website that cites geese as literary symbols: "Wild migrating geese are mentioned casually twice by Homer, and once he likens a warrior among enemies to a vulture among geese (Iliad 17.460). Domestic barnyard geese, however, play a significant symbolic part in the Odyssey. While visiting Menelaus and Helen, Telemachus sees a mountain eagle carrying a white goose from a yard; Helen interprets the omen to mean that Odysseus will return home and take revenge on the suitors (15.160–78). The same meanings are elaborated in Penelope’s dream, in which twenty tame geese are killed by a mountain eagle, who then speaks, telling her he is her husband and the geese her suitors (19.535–53). The suitors have been fattening themselves idly in Odysseus’ house; they will be no match for the eagle."
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