A Dance of Darwinian Proportions

Meg Muthupandiyan

Sibbaldiopsis tridentata

Your three-toed sepals
turn in
and over
and onto themselves —

a clockwork of forks
winding up
the lichened basalt —

hunger ticking with time.

What a dance of Darwinian
proportions —

not only to be mated
to wind
and stone
and wild air —

but to have to
kill and clamber
over parts of yourself
to survive.

The Science

Darwin's Theory of Evolution's most memorable premise dictates the survival of the fittest. It's been the foundational premise of evolutionary biology, but this principle seems to be at work all around us in the lives of trees and small groundcovers: through the course of their lifetimes, plant organisms sacrifice their lower growth, whether they be branches or leaves, in the support of upper growth. While natural selection seems to be observable within plants, it is actually a matter of chemistry that governs their growth process. The growth promoting hormone auxin is always delivered to transporters in areas of the plant where photosynthesis has the most potential to take place. In the best conditions, auxin will be delivered to plants in such a way that they will have equal branching and radial symmetry in all directions. When conditions are less than ideal due to resource or space limitations, the plant will shift its resources, allowing parts of it to die that others may live.

Such is the case with Sibbaldiopsis tridentata, which is also called Three-Leaved Cinquefoil and a host of other names. As it mounds up over itself to survive within a most inhospitable environment, it exhibits a choreography of sorts. Each leaf grows above its others at a quarter turn—like the second hands of a clock. Its radial symmetry is a measure of both its hunger and time.

The Poet

Meg Muthupandiyan is a nature poet, environmental essayist and public humanities artist who teaches creative writing at the University of Wisconsin Superior. Two of her chapbooks were semi-finalists for the 2022 Wolfson Poetry Prize, and her collection of illuminated poems, Forty Days in the Wilderness, Wandering, is available from Finishing Line Press. Her essays, poems, and artwork have appeared in a number of anthologies and journals. You can find her online at meganmuthupandiyan.com.

Next poem: Cognition of Loss by Jessamyn Fairfield