Pieces of glass have brought to light
A secret world beyond your sight.
And everywhere you dare to look
You’ll see what clever Leeuwenhoek
Has seen before. He magnified
Strange creatures all and so he spied
The protozoa and the yeasts,
All kinds of tiny living beasts,
Bacteria, and algae too,
Even cells in me and you.
And here's the particular poem that inspired this image:
Pilobolus
Pilobolus lives on horse's dung,
Not dog's or man's or mice.
Sporangial hats up high are flung
To land on something nice.
Pilobolus are particular.
No common dung will do.
The scenery is spectacular
On soft sweet horse's doo!
Thank you so much, Alissa, for permission to use your work! Both poems are copyright Alissa Bernholc. Please contact Alissa if you'd like to reprint or see more. Also, Alissa would like to point out a slight amendment: Pilobolus can live on other herbivore dung as well as horse's. But not dog's or man's or mice. ;-)
Of course, the real Pilobolus doesn't have faces, unless you're talking about the brilliant dance company of that name. It was named after the fungus because one of the founders had been researching it. Here's an appropriately biological sample of their highly inventive work. I've seen them perform several times over the years & they never fail to cast all sorts of delightful new spores into my brain.
