Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.
Surface patterns for design have traditionally arisen from natural forms, this came from a scientific encounter with a mammal, microscope and slide.
Snout of the Mole
The puzzle of a bulrush,
seen protruding
from a discarded down pipe,
is in fact a common mole.
We can tell this by its paddle legs,
snout biro-ing. If it were dead,
and it will be soon if it’s not released,
we could take it inside, coolly slice
a horizontal section of its dermal root,
from the vibrissa of its muzzle,
wonder at asymmetric patterns
beneath the slide, how the hair
is surrounded by a vertical plexus
of nerve terminal, how it would look
duplicated in crimson
along the full circle of an A-line.
From Signs of Early Man (Templar, 2009), Jane Weir 2009, used by permission of the author and the publisher