Happy Geese

I realize this is anthropomorphizing, but I could swear the geese I saw this morning poking around in the mud in the middle of the Rio Grande looked happy.

It’s been astonishingly wet here since the first of the year, El Niño wet, record wet. This morning I rode up to the Alameda Bridge over the Rio Grande to look at the river. It’s a particular spot I always go, an old road bridge that’s closed to traffic. It crosses a couple of low islands in the middle of the river, and on the islands’ edges this morning, a bunch of Canada geese were poking in the fresh mud. They seemed – I dunno – pleased. It’s a desert, they’re geese. I guess they grasp the essence of the thing more immediately than we do.