By seven the pond is already practicing. The geese gather on the near bank in a slightly crooked suggestion of a line, as if they remember the idea of order but have not quite put it on yet.
We asked at the kiosk by the path. A woman buying sunflower seeds said the birds used to start whenever they felt like it. Now even the smallest ones glance at the little wooden bridge first and wait.
The park keeper pinned a polite note to the railing: the bridge will nod when the planks are ready, and the reeds have agreed to hold still for exactly one row. It keeps the morning from getting tangled, he wrote, as if mornings were scarves.
By eight the nod comes, small and wooden. The geese go, one behind the other, and the reeds lean back just enough to let a single polite procession through.