By Joan Mazza
My view from my office window shows
black water punctuated by small rafts
of filamentous algae, the last of the lotus
pads at the edges, facing south
like satellite dishes ready for the energy
of a signal on waves of light.
Beneath the surface, life goes on—
water snakes and snapping turtles, bluegill
and catfish, bull frogs and cricket frogs.
Magnified, every drop is alive with beings
swimming in this minestrone of evolved
forms. A few drops in a ladle, transferred
to a plastic container that once held red
sugar sprinkles for decorating cookies,
and I’m at my microscope, magnifying
the world, searching in my guides
and textbooks, scrolling online to find
the name of one amber oval doing
somersaults between grit and veined
fibers, amid smaller spheres that dash
and disappear. I recognize this one now,
appearing with each sample of from
the pond’s muddy, crayfished shore.
Not a paramecium, not amoeba, not
cyanobacterium, spirillum, or volvox. I see
you again and again. I recognize your gait,
your shape and size, the way you skate
across the field, flip to change directions.
Your waist is pinched a bit, your mouth
obscured. Please, tell me your Latin name.
Joan Mazza worked as a microbiologist and psychotherapist, and taught workshops on understanding dreams and nightmares. She is the author of six self-help psychology books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam). Her poetry has appeared in Potomac Review, The Comstock Review, Prairie Schooner, Adanna Literary Journal, Slant, Poet Lore, and The Nation. She lives in rural central Virginia, where she writes, reads, and cooks, surrounded by oak and beech trees.
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