I first read the original in Bruce Hafen’s book, Covenant Hearts (Deseret Book, 2005), where he reads it this way: After describing a wedding ceremony he attended where intermittent birdsong reminded him “that certain kinds of birds mate for life,” he writes,

The naturalist Hudson wrote of his adventures among the birds, documenting their habits—including their mating for life. Brigham Young University’s renowned Welsh poet, Leslie Norris, captured that instinct for permanence in “Hudson’s Geese” [Then he quotes the poem in its entirety and continues].

“Nothing but his body?” Perhaps the two geese were soul mates—don’t let the dog have his soul too. Let their souls somehow be together, always, undisturbed by dogs—or wolves. Leslie Norris would see that. His wife, Kitty, has nourished the soul of his poetry through their lifelong conversation. Kitty was very sick recently, and in her afflictions Leslie was afflicted. I saw it in his eyes when he spoke of her. She is the point of his circling; he, the point of hers. (158-60)

The poem and Hafen’s reading of it touched me so deeply that when I next saw geese touch down on a pond (where I’d been walking with my daughter), this reprise was born. Reprise, I think, because it carries on where Leslie left off, describing love and passion (for a mate, for language, for nature, for one’s readers) as they echo through the corridors of imagination and memory.

Though I never had the chance to associate with Leslie Norris the man, Leslie Norris the poet, the indomitable wielder of words, has influenced me through the page. I tried to capture something of that influence, of my attempts to understand, here.

I’ve always understood Leslie’s original not only to reflect a feeling for the bond between the geese but also as expression of Leslie’s own love for his wife, Kitty.

Very interesting to me, the last part of your last line: “leaving / phantom indentations / in the eyes of those who / understood their love.”

It gathers up geese, the Norrises, the environment of your own feeling, and everybody else who “understands.”

Intriguing to me, these deeper worlds of love, where life might be seen differently, and where geese are perceived to be as participant as anybody.