Shapes of Time - using TALMOS Gateway: Twas Wonderful

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"...twas wonderful to see..."

"...'twas wonderful to see...": spirogyra, 1674

"I found floating therein divers earthy particles and some green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise and orderly arranged...other particles had but the beginning of the foresaid streak; but all consisted of very small green gobules joined together; and there were very many small green globules as well...These animacules had divers colours, some being whiteish and transparent, others with green and very glittering little scales...And the motion of most of these animacules in the water was so swift, and so various upwards, downwards and roundabout, that 'twas wonderful to see; and I judge that some of these little creatures were above a thousand times smaller than the smallest ones I have ever yet seen..."

Anton van Leeuwenhoek. writing to the Royal Academy in 1674, describing what he saw through his lenses in a drop of lake water.

"...'twas wonderful to see...": waterboatmen, 1953.

The riverruns along the backs of the houses;
Skeltersteep clay banks overhang
Shadowed water, slow-flowing, knee-deep.

In its watery universe
Larva craft gravel armour, setting
grains of grit into a perfect body-fitting matrix.
An angry redbreast stickleback scatters a bunch of fry.
Headdown, a whirlagig beetle languorous on its fart bubble;
Waterboatmen skittering over the water's oily skin.
Clouds of restless midges measuring the air.

Back home at teatimecall with a jam-jar of doomed,
disregarding specimens in one hand
and a pair of dripping socks in the other.

Marshall Mateer, 2007.

"...'twas wonderful to see...": snow fleas, 2006

"...The snow flea's mode of locomotion, strange and odd, with a springy tail mehanism with hooks and a prottracted tube from the abdomen to enable moisture absorbtion...."

Wasps...with legs dangling fall asleep.

:: From 'Army Ants' by Tom Waits.
"Insect facts gathered from the world book encyclopedia, 'Audubon Field Guide', reliable sources and the naked eye." From 'Orphans', 2006, Anti Inc and Jalma Music.

This work, image and text - third party quotations and references excepted - is by Marshall Mateer and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. .
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