John Beck

Marking the Return of the Geese
PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2026: VOL. 41.

“Time was more viscous here, slick and slow moving” - Larry Beinhart

It lays
on the streets

like heavy
snow, slick

when something
is hidden

below, unseen
within its swirls.

I walk
slower now

since
it pulls

at my legs,
and I am

afraid
to fall

and give
myself up

to its enfolding,
its embrace,

to its gravity.
The passage

over my days
seems fleeting,

but moment
to moment,

it slows.
Slow is

better though
than the sudden

braking,
the halt,

the silence,
the period

on my sentence,
the paragraph,

the manuscript,
the story.

-30-
Full stop.

𐫱𐫱𐫱

Raised in a milltown on Lake Michigan in Michigan's Upper Peninsula,  John Peter Beck is a recently retired professor in the labor education  program at Michigan State University where he still co-directs a program  that focuses on labor history and the culture of the workplace, Our  Daily Work/Our Daily Lives.  His poetry has been published in a number  of journals including The Seattle Review, Another Chicago Magazine, The  Louisville Review and Passages North among others.