Protozoa Haiku

The use of natural history is to give us aid in supernatural history;
the use of the outer creation, to give us language
for the beings and changes of the inward creation.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature

This pages features the first of my efforts to show the beauty and wonder of the creatures inhabiting the microscopic world in a form most suited to them, the haiku. To see the representata of these poems, please click on the title to see images, most of them housed at the excellent Microbial Digital Images Archives.

 

 

 

 

The Protozoa Small creatures, living out your busy lives, you know not what you teach me.

Teuthophrys trisculca
Three limbed mystery,
Rarely cited, rarely seen
Miniature kraken.

 

Platycola Sunken amphora, Flick'ring carnation petals, Pinked by Darwin's shears.

 

 

 

 

Unknown long-necked paramecium(?) Your graceful spiral dance, your long necked spin, no poem, no photo captures. You do not labor to be beautiful; all my still lifes are still born.

 

Trachelophyllum Your neck's graceful curve A shape as simply pleasing As your small motions.

 

 

 

 

Stylonychia Hair-limbed scurrier, Flexing through the filaments, You show Gaia's wit.

 

 

 

 

Opalina Fringed flying carpet, Green with golden eyelets, lost In the frog's belly.

 

Vorticella Hungry globule, mouth Floating upward, voracious, Leaps back out of fear.

Meade 9400 Microscope Glass eyed metal tube, Narrow and broaden my sight, Show me hidden worlds!   Amoeba proteus Unpredictable, You alert us to all our Possible futures.         Euglena Bright-eyed but sightless, Tonguéd slug twirls its tendril Into the future.   Stentor coeruleus O, that th'universe, Azure infundibular, Were as beautiful. Protozoa Haiku Protozoa Links Protozoa in Popular Culture Music to Watch Protozoa By Protozoa Equipment and Books The Haiku Gallery Next | Previous | Random | List All © 2007 Hermester Barrington Back to The Crystal Egg! This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page