More about Goat

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When I saw this tree cutting next to a city sidewalk, it instantly reminded me of a goat’s head, with its long thin face and beard. The likeness is distant—in an almost Surrealist/Cubist way—but somehow I couldn’t shake it. Goat is plant matter being repurposed as animal iconography, celebrating the way our minds work in “seeing things” in nature and how we find that both spooky and delightful. Goat is not so much about goats (although I am really fond of them) as it is about that innate tendency—gift, really—to see things where they don’t exist, and therefore about us. Oh and a word of thanks to the tree-cutter who might have seen the goat too!

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But this was a city tree that had managed to thrive underneath layers of concrete and asphalt its entire life. It was finally deemed a hazard to public safety owing to infestations and down it came, sawn neatly into chunks. It's comforting to think the tree has found a suitable afterlife in the form of a kindred spirit the goat, which lives a similarly rugged existence.

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