Garvey, the Goose

Garvey, the Goose
                                                             By
                     
Garvey, a proud Canadian goose stood high atop an old lightning struck pine tree.
The sunshine put a sparkle in his eyes and lit up his smoothly oiled feathers.  He
preened those feathers.  He picked and pulled at his feathers, and he daydreamed.
He sighed to himself and honked, “Some day, I, Garvey, will be the king of flight.  I
will soar and dive like a regal Bald Eagle.”

“Here I am,” Garvey dreamed aloud, “perched high atop the world, where no goose
has gone before me!”  He imagined his wings strengthening and lengthening like an
eagle.  Then, Garvey’s large yellow bill becomes a sharp pointed beak designed to
cut through the air and capture his prey.  “With this beak,” Garvey thought to himself
proudly, “I can hunt and fish from the highest sky!”

Stretching high on his royal perch Garvey’s flat webbed feet became talons that
fiercely grip all that he is determined to reach.  And those gentle, round eyes that
looked at all things from both sides became two golden slits that pinpoint all that he
spies like a scampering gopher or a tiny fish in the murkiest river water.

Something was missing.  Garvey began to feel alone.  He soon realized that an eaglehunts and fishes without the honking and chattering of a family or friends.  Garveymissed all the flying and feasting he did with his family.  As an eagle he misses out onthe travel and safety of his group.  He knew how important his family’s travels were to other creatures in this world.  His family helped bring in new seasons all over the world.  Can an eagle brag about such an important duty?

As Garvey puffed out his chest knowing that within him was the heart of an eagle,
courageous and proud, his flock and family flew over him.  He knew that he dreamed
a dream that would never be.  He knew that he was Garvey the Goose, a great gray
goose with a home and family.  He was never alone. 

Garvey stood tall atop his tree.  He spread his wings that were wide like an eagle,
but not.  Garvey looked down from his towering pine.  With his eagle’s heart
pounding in his throat, he knew why a goose almost never lands in a tree.  From the
top of that tree there was nowhere to go but down.  There was no safe runway to fly
off.  No running room at all for the wind to catch his wings and lift him into the safety
of the sky.  There was no way to take off at all but to jump. 

What Garvey did next is shocking his goose friends even today.  Garvey jumped.  He
leaped from high up that shattered tree top and dropped like a rock rolling down a
hillside.  He dropped and he flapped.  He flapped those eagle-sized wings, but he
continued to drop.  An instant later the wind caught beneath his wings, and raised
him safely into the sky where his flock welcomed him with honking and flapping
wings.  The flock will know him always as Garvey.

Garvey is the goose with the heart of an eagle.