“The spherical alga Volvox swims by means of flagella on thousands of surface somatic cells. This geometry and its large size make it a model organism for studying the fluid dynamics of multicellularity.

Remarkably, when two nearby Volvox colonies swim close to a solid surface, they attract one another and can form stable bound states in which they ‘waltz’ or ‘minuet’ around each other.”

Drescher et al., Physical Review Letters, 2009.

Note: This poem has accompanying audio; to listen along, click here.

Volvox Minuet

In one old studio my round instructor
is warming up her knees. Always the knees,
she said. You don't know what you've got
til it's gone. And then the music:
plaintive songs from long-
forgotten instruments.
My hair has slipped
from its braid. My teacher
counts, a hypnotist's trope,
and I am five hundred years ago.
The braid there has slipped too,
but there someone has bent
to mend it.

There is a pond on the way home,
a rich green plate of globular forms.
And in there the algae awaken.
A shy current pushes their arms
to preparation. The music begins.

Like new stars we all have been,
so blind to the cosmos and any orbit
but our own.

*

Poem by me; audio and music by Squid Pro Crow (that’s me and Grant Balfour); Volvox photo by Massimo Brizzi, CC by 4.0.