Poems by Elica Sue

Family Man at Laguna Lake

by Elica Sue

From Canary Spring 2025

Elica lives on the traditional lands of the Tongva peoples, and where the orange groves once grew—near the Santa Ana River and the Pacific Ocean.

Photo by Elica Sue

There is a pair of Egyptian geese that live at the man-made lake. We spot them with their small downy goslings for the spring, eight of them, bobbing and floating alongside their parents like a fleet of toy boats in a bathtub riding manufactured waves. As they pick at the ground for food, we see a yellow plastic band on mother goose’s left foot and a clear fishing wire wrapped around father goose’s left foot, and it can be deadly—digging deep so it bulges above and below, turning his bright pink leg a swollen purple. Fishing line recycling bin; please recycle your used fishing line here—no trash please, no basura. The father goose picks at the loose end of the wire with his beak. He walks with a limp. Stupid fishermen don't know how to clean up after themselves.

We see it all the time; neon bobbers hanging from a clear line in the bulrush, clear line dangling from the trees, tangled line on the dirt path. Have you seen one today? A pair of women in a car on the other side of the fence hear that frustration. And they tell us that they called animal control, but they said they couldn’t catch him earlier, and there was nothing they could do, absolutely nothing, unless we caught him and called them back. The women exit their car with a bucket of oats, scissors, a knife, and a blanket. To catch the father goose, we try to lure him by throwing oats on the floor. These ducks may look like they want a handout but feeding them does more harm than good.

We recruit a father and a mother with a young son who loves the goslings—a family—and they try to help us. The geese jump into the water. We recruit another couple in their early twenties, and the boyfriend offers to use his remote-controlled blue boat to try and steer the geese back onto land. The first attempt at a wild goose chase ends with wings and arms and water everywhere and mother goose splaying out her wings parallel to the floor, honking, honking, honking. Keep an eye out for wildlife in the park’s trees and shrubs. Keep an ear open too. Father goose gets away. Before the second attempt, a young, black-crowned night heron flies into a nearby tree, its red-ring eye turned towards us. Before the second attempt, the father of the young son slips on a rock by the lake, crushing the Airpods that were in his pocket. Do not swim, wade, or bathe in the lake or creek.

Since the father of the young son is already wet from slipping, he gets into the water and pursues the family of geese as the boyfriend with the remote-controlled boat tries to guide the goose family with a long branch he snapped off a tree. They capture father goose in a tussle, wing-grabbing, neck-grabbing, body-grabbing. There is a struggle. Mother goose with her goslings swim in the opposite direction, away from us. The father of the young son holds the goose in the blanket and the boyfriend with the remote-controlled boat uses the knife to cut the wire, while one of the women from the car films a video on her phone. We all watch, holding our breaths while the father of the young son unravels the clear wire from father goose’s foot. Your dad is a hero, one of the women tells the young son. The goose jumps back into the water, wings flapping, and he rejoins his family just down the way. Don’t leave your line behind. As we leave, we see him preening his feathers alongside his family, no longer picking at the wire that is no longer there. Keep our waterways tangle-free.