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.