of distant jungles
hanging heavy in the proper London air.
In Kew Gardens, the conservatory, a cathedral grand
dedicated to botany, he gazed upon the Star of Bethlehem,
an orchid, exiled from the heights of Madagascar.
Each petal carved from ivory’s gleam, blooming
in the velvet night. Beneath the celestial petals grow
strange spurs, nectaries, green whips hanging
twelve inches long, tips wet with juice, the honeyed lure.
From the negative, Darwin saw the positive.
He wrote, “Good Heavens, what insect could suck it?”
Only an insect with a proboscis, a nose improbable,
one-foot long. His revelation met with waves
of ridicule crashing from Britain to the Continent.
Laughter rippled through forty years until the night
an entomologist with animal eyes, silently waiting
high in the trembling jungle, captured the shadow
of the hawk moth. Its shaggy wings, eight inches wide,
beat through layered leaves following the scent of musk.
The hawk moth hovered before the radiant Star,
its slender snout coiled tight, unfurled its length,
probed down the orchid’s spur, sipped the nectar,
and bore away a fine coat of pollen. Darwin’s vision,
a spark through golden amber, orchid and moth in eager
embrace, two bound as one, across eons’ arc.
About Coevolution
Charles Darwin, naturalist and author of The Origin of Species, encountered an orchid with an unusual feature — foot-long hollow tubes hanging beneath the blossoms, the tips filled with nectar. Darwin realized that the pollinator for this flower must have an equally long snout, or proboscis, to be able to reach the nectar and fertilize the flower. Darwin was ridiculed for this preposterous idea — imagine the sight of a poor insect attempting to fly while sporting a foot-long proboscis — until just such a moth was discovered. The Hawk Moth flies with its snout coiled in a tight ball, and unfurls this dexterous appendage to delicately probe the orchid’s hanging nectaries. In part, through his encounter with this orchid, he began to formulate the theory that species can form long-term evolutionary relationships leading to extraordinary and mutually beneficial transformations and unique dependencies. All life has slowly and patiently evolved over the eons, exquisitely adapting to a challenging world. How will we continue to successfully evolve in a world we are so rapidly transforming?
Web of Life
Dedicated to Dr. W. D. Billing, originator of the
Holocoenotic Theory of Environmental Complexity
Bind together the blooming air, water dancing
from pole to frozen pole. The sun’s touch
brings light to steamy life. The loamy earth,
the patient plants and all the animals, secret
family wed by blood. The sacred fire lights
the dark and leaves pure ash. Spin each thread,
strong and supple, every strand lit with honey’s glow,
weave the cloth, an endless circle. Here and there,
you and me, all the ones who came before,
ancient kin to every pilgrim who walks the path.
Life, long and loud, sings and whistles, croaks and
howls. In our metal days, machine and man
clash and grind. This once fine cloth, used so hard,
gaping holes torn side to side. Edges fray
like fine down feathers. Our broken fingernails,
black with grease, knuckles grazed with scars,
bind each living fiber, mend the tears, renew the web,
until the deserts hum with life and leaf again.
About Web of Life
Dr. W. D. Billings, a professor of Life Sciences, researched botanical environments and illustrated his holistic theory with an intricate line drawing. He modeled the complex, interdependent relationships that foster life and showed how all parts of the web of life are deeply entwined and work together to create functioning ecosystems. Ecosystems consist of interdependent communities of living plants and creatures with their supportive physical environments. All life on our planet, including humans, is sustained through complex relationships with our ecosystems. We are dependent on the natural world for our survival, and our personal actions and inactions affect our planet’s health, and then in turn, our own. This poem’s illustration includes part of Dr. Billings’s circular scientific illustration, and several key forces making all life possible — the sun, pollen, water, and the atmosphere.
Double Vision
I.
Raising crystal eyes to a vestal sky, endless web
of silver lake blue, untouched by time, but rent by rock
stone arches surge to broken crests, etched and scarred.
Wandering tangled streets, chilled water from ancient aqueducts
sits like a polished river rock in my belly. Rome, past and present,
picked over bones of an endless feast. Entering the sunken
stone orb, home to all the gods, the sweeping span leads eyes up
to a shaft of light piercing a pounding oculus. The sun coils
at
