The Canada goose lay on the pavement, its carcass flattened by some vehicle, feathers splayed crazily, its head facing east at the end of its long, twisted neck, and as I drove by, I wondered:
Don't these birds mate for life?
They do, and after I'd passed, I looked in the rear view mirror to search for the mate.
There it was, on the far side of the highway, it's head down, low to the pavement, at the end of its own, awkwardly-bent neck, as it walked away from the body of its other.
And then I heard it: The awful, sad honking, the pleading voice of that being, him or her, (and I do not personify frivolously, for certainly within the flesh of such a being dwells as much a spirit as my own,) that mournful cry, that: Why?
And now in my eyes there are tears for him or her, for us.