Living together

Patricia Hemminger

Evolution depends on intimacy, cells
entering one another, merging billions 
of years ago, not only on survival of the fittest.

It’s clear we need bacteria, tucked in the warm 
crevices of our intestine⎯ like the newborn held
close in the curves of his mother⎯ to help 

us with digestion. In return we eat whole 
grains, bananas, greens, onions, garlic, 
feed a myriad microbial species.

And we all know plants effuse the oxygen 
we breathe and we exhale the very gas they need 
to grow, envelop Earth in its green canopy,

like the blanket a mother wraps around
her son, cradling him as she sits 
on the porch, that summer after he is born. 

Of course it’s true that carnivores kill,
red in tooth and claw, to feed their pups 
but nature also favors other close relationships. 

Woolly bats find pitcher plants by listening 
for the echo, nest in the cozy roost.
Their guano nourishes the hungry plant. 

And pistol shrimp and goby fish live together 
in seafloor burrows, dug by the shrimp. 
The goby keeps lookout at the door,

like the grown son now watches over 
his mother, washes her hair, braids 
it as she tells him stories.

The Science

As a science journalist I spoke to Lynn Margulis about her theory of symbiogenesis, which asserts that cells with nuclei, eukaryotic cells, evolved from the symbiotic merger of bacteria without nuclei that had previously existed independently. This theory absolutely intrigued me as I wondered if human behaviour might have been influenced more towards people and even countries working together if evolution had initially been associated with symbiotic relationships rather than ‘survival of the fittest’.

The Poet

The experience of growing up in rural North Yorkshire, UK along with her science background and love of nature informs and inspires Patricia Hemminger’s poetry. Spillway, Streetlight Magazine, The Write Launch, and Peregrine Journal among others have kindly published some of her poetry. She holds a PhD in chemistry and is a graduate of NYU’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and of Drew University’s MFA Poetry and Poetry in Translation Program. Her chapbook What Do We Know of Time? was published by Finishing Line Press in October 2022.

Next poem: Makina by Heidi Mendoza