12/29/11

Another angle

A goose coming down from Canada, you and your flock are heading for a delightfully swampy area between two long lakes that lie just the other side of one great lake. Honk when you see it.

After a soft, squishy landing, you want a fine meal and a good rest. This place, Goose Island, has it all. It's a goose buffet, made for you. So many choices. Speaking of wormholes, dig in, have a worm. Have ten worms, have insects. You don't have to look too far for frog legs. Bon appetit.

The rest room? You're soaking in it. Relieve yourself right there. What you leave behind will live on as soil.

And next thing you know, you're soil. Although part of you is and will always be goose. Same thing only different. After some centuries, during which you get richer and richer just vegetating, you feel pressure from above. Like you were run over by a plow? That's just what happened. A day or two later, a farmer comes by and in you, plants potato seed. As soil, it is your job to nurture this seed. You give it all you've got, which would include the part of you that's goose, the part of you that's frog, other buried swamp residents. Stewed trees.  

In the year 2011, postcards featuring your famous Livonia Center potatoes and onions will be worth $25 on something called eBay. But you're in the dark at this point, just doing your job, giving all that's in you to this potato. Indeed, you become this potato.   
"I'm in the milk and the milk's in me."
Maurice Sendak
To every thing, there is a season. OK, your day in the sun is over. Ding, you're done. One day the farmer comes back, yanks you out of the ground, and off you go to your next incarnation as dinner for the farmer's family. You are consumed by one of the farmer's daughters.

So finally, you the former goose are now a little girl. Your name is Jennie Osborne. You were born in 1850.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Antoine_lavoisier_color.jpg
Matter is neither created nor destroyed.  
Antoine Lavoisier