Sample Poems by Roni Fuller

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Fascination

In ocean depths so great no sun can find
its way to bring the gift of new-born life
(with no photosynthesizing algae),
exist some scores of species, shrimp-like forms
and crabs, barnacles and breathing tube worms,
thriving in churning waters, escaping
cracks wrenched open by volcanic action.

Right here we may, perhaps, have found the source
of all the life that follows- seething pots
of chemicals spewing forth potent brews
with alchemical codes which bring forth one
which can, in some way yet unknown, produce
itself in duplicate. Fascination
of what lies there unknown leads on to thought
until a moment when a spark ignites
in someone's brain-a bold inspiration.

Charles Darwin, the man who brought us all this,
who thought the thoughts that broke the bonds of those
held captive by prejudice and habit,
by long-accepted, complicated truths
which did not have validity, whose strengths
were merely chimeras of wrong beliefs
held too strongly by unquestioning minds,
gave us the answer, endlessly refined.

Thomas Henry Huxley read Darwin's work
and wondered why he never thought of it,
evolution, obvious, potent truth
of speciation by selection's force.
Then he became the bulldog champion
of what he knew at once was clearly right.

Alfred Russell Wallace did think of it,
intuited it, you might also say,
and stimulated Darwin to publish;
and then the world exploded around them.

There would have been some others to describe
that process which defines biology.
It did not have to wait; Darwin, Wallace
saw it, found it, had the fascination
needed to begin the discovery.

How strange the minds of some who cannot know,
or is it will not know, allow the facts
to spell out clearly what is written there,
in ocean depths so great no sun can find
its way to bring the gift of new-born life.

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Darwin's worms

Beyond all comprehension, and beyond
the universe, incomprehensible
so that "vast" become an irrelevance,
and "eternal time" an oxymoron,
we live encountering a simple life
filled with puttering and planting, a soil
filled with worms making more fine soil again.

A common room filled with books forgotten
by time and the college, unused by guests.
There lies Darwin's final book, first published
1881, an edition from
1896, The formation of
vegetable mould through the action of worms.
It lies worn by time but not with reading,
as the pages are uncut. Charles Darwin,
with his bland methods, exposes and solves
mysteries within the beaks of finches,
in eating habits of great tortoises,
and in activities of worms, those great
creators of our planet's wealth and dreams.

On my knees I dig the soil and find worms
living quietly by the synagogue.
Within the temple we attempt approach
to what is beyond our comprehension,
while outside worms dig and remake the world.

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Inevitable

The book is heavy,
weighted down by sadness,
tales of waiting for extinction,
inevitable,
of several hundred birds,
possibly or severely endangered.

Wait long enough,
and all nine thousand plus,
the supposed total of bird species,
will suffer one of several ends.
Extinction total, or adaptations,
to become another or several,
eventually ending as will earth.

Another book, quite as heavy,
chronicles thirty-nine species,
the splendors of Paradisaeidae,
the Birds of Paradise,
thought most probably
the distant relatives of jays and crows.

They will change, become extinct as well,
but seem to have resisted so far,
thousands of years of hunters
decorating themselves for the dance,
even hundreds of years as prizes
to adorn elegant ladies' hats.
The inevitable waits a while.

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Books

No one has read the pages of the volume before me,
the one I hold tonight in my hands as I read:
Ernst Haeckel's 1874 work, in an edition from 1897,
The Evolution of Man, kindly translated for me from the German.
I know this as surely as I know of another book,
the pages of which were unread, as I found it,
many years ago in a college common room.
The pages of both books were uncut.

As a general rule I am not a thief;
however, I regret sometimes I did not steal
from that common room Darwin's book
The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms.
Later, I purchased my own copy of this work,
but in a disappointingly bland paperback version,
something to read with pleasure, but not own with pride.

Part of the pleasure I have in reading these books,
is that they contain no split infinitives.
Other than a few operatic phrases,
I do not know German. I do not know if in German
one can split an infinitive, but the translator does not.
In English one can, Darwin does not, and I relish that.
A book itself is something to treasure, to hold, to admire.
My Haeckel came from a used book store in Ithaca,
forty-five dollars for the two volume set,
with beautiful binding and glossy, uncut pages.
I read it with a small knife nearby to cut the pages
as I come to them. Haeckel is lovely to read,
even if sometimes, maybe often, outdated.
Yet the prose is good,
and the evolutionary basis, as with Darwin, is still sound.

I have evolved from some distant ancestors.
Some were mammals surely,
and if I could search far enough,
I would find sponge-like creatures,
and single- celled organisms.
There are still unanswered questions,
many new wonders to unfold.
I am thankful for these unknowns,
for I can still speculate.

How did my mind become so complex?
Why do I love to hold beautiful books?
Why am I disturbed by split infinitives?