Shapes

Stripes of the angelfish,

Stripes of the zebra,

Undulations of sand dunes,

Branching of trees and rivers,

Rococo shapes of radiolarians,

Dinoflagellates and coccolithophores...

Spiral waves and concentric rings of Belousov-Zhabotinsky reactions,

Exquisite transitions of Liesegang bands...


My heartbeat:

With each pulse an electrical wave

Surges through the tissue

From out of the sinoatrial node,

Opening up tiny molecular channels,

To let charged ions flow through the membrane

And the muscle contracts.


The sperm joins with the ovum

And waves of calcium ions

Pulse over the surface of the egg,

Priming the explosion.


The prey and the predator,

The parasite and the host-

Oscillations synchronized

With mathematical beauty.


Ants are building cemeteries,

Disposing of their dead with neurotic orderliness,

Compelled by mechanisms they do not understand.


Buckles and ridges of my fingertips,

Wrinkled like seed pods, like butterfly eggs,

I am still the foetus of that goetic hour,

Wombed in my mother’s devotion.