Gaggle and Skein

February 2013

A goose in a group become geese and geese on ground is a gaggle. The collective noun gathers the singular feathered thing and it becomes something else altogether.

Observe the heron, elegantly skimming water surface to placidly survey a vast terrain. 

Put a few together and you suddenly have a seige. Compare with the crow, imposing as an independent, all black eyes and plume but a collective of crows is a murder. 

I like the idea of the penguin, dressed to go out, slipping and sliding on ice all alone. However, a parcel of penguins softens my thoughts and I smile at images of gift-wrapped flappers honking on ice rinks.

As for the parrot they are raucous and noisy but collectively are a most impressive pandemonium.

The lovely thing about a collective is that the individual is still heard in the flapping and ruffling and pecking.

Geese are still geese in a gaggle.

At some mysterious point in time though, the gaggle responds to an unseen call and something beautiful happens: together they soar as a skein.

From goose to gaggle to skein, the feathered creatures take flight; the form structured and smart as each one works together to fly in the same direction.

As we embrace each other, we become a gaggle, but as we fly together we become a skein soaring on thermals, flapping feathered wings sprung through hope in the dreaming.