None have seen the Barnacle Goose’s nest or egg; nor is this surprising since such geese are said to have spontaneous generation. When the fir masts or planks of ships have rotted in the sea, a kind of fungus breaks out upon them in which after time the form of birds may be seen; and these become clothed in feathers and eventually fly away. William Turner, 16th Century English Ornithologist.
They happen slowly, these changes —
so much slower than the growth of stems,
or the spiraling of a mollusk shell —
that things seem to stay the same, nothing jars
us toward metamorphosis,
the way, in poems, gods merely waved
careless hands and instantaneously,
a boy grew horns,
a girl felt her skin callous into bark,
or two joined together in an agony of closeness,
forming one body, born from a cold lake.
Ovid never studied taxonomy.
His hand moved with the speed of imagination,
and like all speed, it was painful, passionate.
He never went to the Galapagos,
never sat drawing bird beaks, wondering
what shapes they would take next.
Yet everything is stretching, shedding skin, breaking
out — and even we outgrow ourselves
unpredictably.
Charles — on the sloop deck, looking back to volcanic shores —
did you remember the old ornithologists
who thought geese grew from barnacles
hanging like white and gray pears on driftwood logs?
No one ever caught them in their chrysalis,
but, marvelous! — to see the shells open
and watch necks emerge like stalks
on which their bodies swell!
To observe how armor turns to down,
plumage so fine it moves in still air,
as though someone stood breathing on their bodies.
Finally, the head and beak form, with a shake, the fruit falls
and waddles toward the water where it floats,
as though to say goodbye to what it once had been.
Then, with a flashing spray,
new wings
lift up —
fly!
