I turned around the corner, and just like that, there were two families of geese. Completely unperturbed by my presence, they walked up from the lake shore, through the grass, onto the path, not 2 meters away from me.

The German word for the way goslings follow a leader in a straight line is “Gänsemarsch”, geese march. Not to be confused with goose stepping, which in German is called Stech Schritt, literally translated as stabbing step.

Goosesteps

A collector of   walks, I was practicing my llamastep
when one of   those white geese with the knob
of cheddar on its bill honked at the goslings
ignoring the art of the rank and file so adored
by Mussolini and other assorted lunatics
who I have trouble believing could ever raise one leg
parallel to the earth they scorched without falling
prey to gravity that was given a special kind of dominion
over the fascist paunch, a shabby thing
I have never seen hang around the waist of a goose,
though who can say for sure under all that heavenly
down where the hips of a goose begin and end; and even
if   tomorrow some budding scholar published a treatise
titled The Mystery of Goose Hips to fanfare,
it would be an exaggeration of   the grossest kind
to equate a goose’s trumpet with the barking
from the balcony by the sad bullies whose love
of   the locked leg I will never understand
since the knee was so obviously made to flex,
which means locking one is most likely a kind of sin
against Darwin or God, both of whom I think
would disapprove of anything so unnatural
as even twenty people moving in stiff unison
to music unless the brass and strings
were just about to sway and bend to the hot
version of  “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

by TOMÁS Q. MORÍN

I associate goose stepping with authoritarian leaders, although it originated in 18th century Prussia under Prince Leopold I. Locked knees, lifted to a 90 degree angle, brought crashing down with a loud slap, a totally unnatural and physically demanding, if not exhausting form of walk.

Originally performed by batallions or platoons, it was meant to impress with physical prowess, and disciplined determination. By the time Mussolini and Hitler made it one of their trademarks, something else was added to the mix. The synchronized mass movement of bodies was participatory without being democratic. People bought into the mass spectacles, but it was directed top down, all in service of a leader. I am thinking back to what Hannah Arendt wrote about Totalitarianism: an organized, privileged elite pushes masses together into a form of experienced unity that relieves the individual of a sense of isolation. Our need for belonging is sated by participation in a larger whole, the nation or paternalism of some charismatic leader.

Synchronized movement fosters a loss of self, a bonding to or being usurped by some larger unit, taking with it the worries and the loneliness generated by a society in flux. That kind of de-individuation might also, however, lead to complete abdication of responsibility, or upholding of one’s individual moral standards. A mass becomes a mob….. and at the center of it is always a component of fostered hatred.

Arendt, writing about a time when goose stepping was on the rise in Germany between the world wars, described it succinctly:

Enough. I have to stop thinking about urgent political, historical parallels, or I go nuts. Let’s just marvel at the fluffiness of the goslings, the nurturing parent geese, the poet’s ability to distance himself from the horrors with a good portion of humor.

And here the Boss version of the Saints marching…..