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Goines hadn’t yet counted the fruit remaining on the tree, a count of the number of persimmons that might make it to harvest – in October or November. Such a count would decrease as the tree continued to shed its excess weight. For that was what the tree was doing, according to Mrs. Goines: protecting itself from a limb-breaking accumulation of heavier and heavier persimmons. How did the tree know to do that? Goines wondered. It was wondrous strange.
| Copyright © 2019 by Moristotle |
So much we don't know about nature. Male anoles, what most peopl erroneously call chameleons in Florida, will not tolerate other males of their species in their territory-except their own offspring. Exactly how does an animal with a brain approximately the size of the point, not the head,the POINT of a pin, know its own offspring from those of other anoles?
ReplyDeleteI'm reminded of Robert Frost's poem, "A Considerable Speck":
DeleteA speck that would have been beneath my sight
On any but a paper sheet so white
Set off across what I had written there.
And I had idly poised my pen in air
To stop it with a period of ink
When something strange about it made me think,
This was no dust speck by my breathing blown,
But unmistakably a living mite
With inclinations it could call its own.
It paused as with suspicion of my pen,
And then came racing wildly on again
To where my manuscript was not yet dry;
Then paused again and either drank or smelt--
With loathing, for again it turned to fly.
Plainly with an intelligence I dealt.
It seemed too tiny to have room for feet,
Yet must have had a set of them complete
To express how much it didn't want to die.
It ran with terror and with cunning crept.
It faltered: I could see it hesitate;
Then in the middle of the open sheet
Cower down in desperation to accept
Whatever I accorded it of fate.
I have none of the tenderer-than-thou
Collectivistic regimenting love
With which the modern world is being swept.
But this poor microscopic item now!
Since it was nothing I knew evil of
I let it lie there till I hope it slept.
I have a mind myself and recognize
Mind when I meet with it in any guise
No one can know how glad I am to find
On any sheet the least display of mind.
When I see a road-killed possum or deer, I think of how much it must have not "want[ed] to die," yet it "hesitate[d]... / Cower[ed] down in desperation to accept...."