The Goose Tree

 
‘There are likewise here many birds called barnacles,
which nature produces in a wonderful manner, out of
her ordinary course.’
-Topographia Hibernia, Gerald of Wales
 
There are certain trees
whereon shells grow,
white-coloured,
tending to russet.
 
Each shell contains
a little living creature;
like the first line
of a poem, a thing
 
like a lace of silk
delicately woven,
one end of which
is fastened to the shell,
 
and which at the other
feeds into the belly
of a rude mass,
that in time comes
 
to the shape and form
of a bird. When the bird
is perfectly grown,
the shell begins to gape.
 
First lace, then legs,
then all comes forth
until the goose hangs
only by the beak.
 
A short space after,
at full maturity,
it falls into the sea,
where it gathers feathers.
 
Those that fall
onto the land perish
and become nothing.
A blank page.

The Goose Tree is © Moyra Donaldson, from The Goose Tree (Liberties Press, 2014)

Moyra Donaldson The Goose Tree Liberties Press 2014   54 pages.Cover design by Karen Vaughan