The gifted goose read to her daughter,
a highly literate goose,
and as she flew high over water
she read her Dr. Seuss.
“I’d rather, ” daughter said, “you read me
some Mother Goose instead,
I think that Dr. Seuss upset me
while on my feather-bed.”
The gifted goose said to her daughter,
“It's very clear, my dear,
that you prefer songs that are shorter:
I'll change to Edward Lear.”
She read her all about the owl
and pussy cat who sailed
across the ocean on a towel
because their boat had failed,
and all the songs that mother goose
alleged to be by Lear
were garbled, though to Dr. Seuss
resemblances were clear,
but that turned out quite good enough,
for daughter goose preferred
her mother's pseudo-Lear stuff
to any Seuss she'd heard.
And later on she sang her daughter
those same songs, and her niece,
for they were what her mother taught her:
that’s how it goes with geese.
There is a proverb by Randall Jarrell: 'Said the goose to her daughter, 'You are a perfect goose.'' Patricia Storce quotes the line, applying to it to Lawrence Durrell, reviewing a biography on him by Ian MacNiven (Faber and Faber) .
6/22/98
gershon hepner
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mother-goose/
