Gastropods
“World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural.” From Snow
BY LOUIS MACNEICE
1/ chrysomallon squamiferum
Down among the black smokers
in the hot deep places
around the hydrothermal vents;
the gaps between tectonic plates:
Magnetic snails with iron scales
they wrap around themselves and look
like armoured knights or pangolins
or pine cones that they do not know.
These snails do what no
animal has done before
and built a ferrous armour, reinforced
their shells with plates of iron:
not needed to withstand
the crushing pressure of the ocean
tonnage in the dark- it’s teeming there
- but teeth of cone shells and the squeezing
claws of crabs - it’s harsh and hungry
claws of crabs - it’s harsh and hungry
down there in the trench - beyond the reach of sun -
the world
of the inventive or the eaten dead
2/ Far away, up in the clouds,
in New South Wales
Australia, but only on Mount Kaputar,
an island in the sun dried plains,
volcanic remnant of Gondwanaland ...
...There is a hot pink slug, so glamorous,
And sleek, size of a blackbird,
fluorescent on its bed of moss .
Lounging quiet in leaf mould all the day
on green and brown, they’re pinkly bright
but when they feel the mist come down
slow squirrels of another time
they start to climb the nearest tree
to their high pastures
these shining cattle of the night
and graze on ancient algae under Southern stars
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
Anita Greg 28/01/2020
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Discovered in 1999, the multi-layered iron sulphide armour of Chrysomallon squamiferum – which measures a few centimetres in diameter – has already attracted the interest of the US defence department, whose scientists are now studying its genes in a bid to discover how it grows its own metal armour.
..........................................
Elysia-chlorotica
There is a world out there of wonders
That other people know about.but I don’t. How is that ?
They have the Internet and I just learned at school
There are no unicorns but this is real
This animal that has become a living leaf
Its flesh has gone Transparent , it carries chloroplasts
All down the fan-branched polytunnels,
of its digestive system. It has learned from plants
Or rather - learned to use their genes and made itself a greenhouse of the sea
Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.
Slow swimming off the coast on Maine
Self sufficient, solar powered, it barely needs to eat
So Venetian, Carni Vale,
A greengage basking in the sun - it’s radiant
pulsating leaf of emerald jelly
Exalting in the genes it stole from algal strands
A stained glass angel in the salty bay
Or a sea-borne paperweight - in rippling Murano glass
This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.
the fear that you are rare, may
Disappear forever - so shortly since we became aware
Of this - Our Brief Encounter.. You are in my dreams, beyond belief
La lala la. See? I close my eyes and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you
Flower of viridian , your shimmer and your rolling field
and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.
