at the tumulus
...the skeleton of an oak leaf (from last year)... nearly all of its substance (the ingredients of photo-synthesis?) has disappeared and only the seemingly irregular pattern of what i'd call leaf-arteries or veins, remains...resembling the street map of an ancient town that has grown spontaneously without an imposed plan... (is this resemblance an accident or is there a profound similarity of process?) ...

(photograph of leaf)

...as i study a set of 3 blackberry leaves and the street-map-like ribs on their undersides, and the movements of a tiny greenfly with legs (and brain?) too small to discern... i realise (amidst distracting thoughts of next week's picnic here) that unless i take note of these tiny but significant things they will exist unseen or unthought about by anyone, perhaps...

[meta question: so how to make this or any occasion sensitive to such?]

1. how do plants GROW?

2. where does the cell structure originate?...
(my answer: where it is!)

3. what are the flows of water, chemical elements from the soil, and how does photosynthesis PRODUCE this structure?

i am not writing this for ease of reading but for some kind of accuracy, and rememberance... (supposing this moment is our last?)...

4. are the answers to these questions well known (to biologists) or is there some connectiveness that science as we know it so far simply denies or ignores? (all i can do for the moment is to note, and not lose, the questions)...

(these pages are designed to be read with the window set to two-thirds of the screen width)

atlas

homepage

daffodil email newsletter

If you wish to reproduce any of this text commercially please send a copyright permission request to jcj 'at' publicwriting.net (replace 'at' and spaces by the @ sign)