The Gods Who Might Be Geese by Benjamin Cutler

Judge's Choice, 2018 Poetry Contest


These gods are not
migratory. If you prepare

a place for them near
your home and theirs

they will nest there,
overwintering in the silence

of this season—their own
silence as soft and warm

as gray goose down
in cool blue dark.

Darkness like a star-
dappled pond, star-

shine like some kind of grace.
When hunger moves them,

these old gods fly, searching
and settling for the leavings

of our old harvest: making
use of our useless, finding

life in what is dead.





Benjamin Cutler is an English and creative writing teacher at Swain County High School in the southern Appalachian Mountains of Western North Carolina. His poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cider Press Review, Cold Mountain Review, Pembroke Magazine, Noble / Gas Qtrly, and The Carolina Quarterly, among others, and his book, The Geese Who Might be Gods, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag Publishing Company (Spring, 2019). When he's not reading, writing, or playing with his four children, Benjamin can be found on the creeks and trails of his mountain home.  




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