There is a small water fern
Called Azolla, which I do scientific
Experiments with. This water fern
As a symbiotic partner, which has co-habited
The plant, through 140 million years.
A symbiosis like no other.
The symbiont, a life form called Cyanobacteria
Lives inside a cavity in the Azolla leaf.
So what makes this co-existence special?
It’s the complete dependency of the endosymbiont in Azolla
Similar to what marriage does to you.
I now cannot live in independence
Of my wife, deprived of the small things,
Like, heating the food in the microwave,
Making me shake from time to time, like a vibrating
Mobile phone, joking on small
Things that we take for granted
Like our toes and the way they angle.
We are like the Azolla plant,
An eternity beckoning, yet knowing
The almighty truth that we are
Limited by a lifespan, that indefinite
Period of finding our way through
A maze, that riddle always on the tip of one’s nose,
But can never be coughed out as words,
Tipped out from tongues.
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Published by Curiosity-driven life (Dilantha Gunawardana)
Dr Dilantha Gunawardana graduated from the University of Melbourne, as a molecular biologist, and moonlights as a poet. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Botany, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Dilantha lives in a chimeric universe of science and poetry. Dilantha’s poems have been accepted for publication /published in HeartWood Literary Magazine, Canary Literary Magazine, Boston Accent, Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry, Zingara Poetry Review, The Wagon and Ravens Perch, among others. Dilantha too has two anthologies of poetry, 'Kite Dreams' (2016) and 'Driftwood' (2017), both brought to the readership by Sarasavi Publishers, and is working on his third poetry collection (The Many Constellations of Home). Dilantha’s pet areas of teaching and research, include, Nitrogen Fixation, RNA biology, Phytoremediation, Agricultural Biology, and Bioethics & Biosafety. Dilantha blogs at – https://meandererworld.wordpress.com/ -, where he has nearly 2000 poems.
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