I have not sought out poetry about the science of taxonomy, but I have
found two poems by Nabokov and written another myself.
A Discovery
by Vladimir Nabokov, 1943
Dark pictures, thrones, the stones that pilgrims kiss
Poems that take a thousand years to die
But ape the immortality of this
Red label on a little butterfly.
On Discovering a Butterfly
by Vladimir Nabokov, 1943
I found it and I named it, being versed
in taxonomic Latin; thus became
godfather to an insect and its first
describer -- and I want no other fame.
Oomycetes
by Mark Isaak
with apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelly
I met a scholar from an antique school
Who said: Two vast and all-embracing clades
Sit in old journals. . . Outside in a pool,
Half sunk, a downy water mold invades
And, mocking if it's plant or animal,
Confused old authors who its visage read
And tried to fit it in accepted folds
These taxonomic articles had spread.
And pencilled on a page these words appear:
'My name is Oomycetes, Mold of Molds:
Look on my genes, ye Cladists, and despair!'
Nothing besides gets read. In here, away
From moist and verdant pond, still saprobes dare,
And brittle yellow books slowly decay.
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© 2002-2011
Mark Isaak.
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