Diatom with 22 Spokes

[Richard Amiel McGough]

Source (http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/inverse/diatom.php) (with poem)


http://americandigest.org/strikingdiatomweb-thumb.jpg

[Victor]

The link isn't working for me.

[Richard Amiel McGough]

The link isn't working for me.
This is the link:

http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/inverse/diatom.php

[Richard Amiel McGough]

And here (http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artjun03/gophotomic.html) is one to another page that shows the same diatom.

[Victor]

Diatom

http://i45.tinypic.com/jfdohi.jpg
(http://americandigest.org/strikingdiatomweb.jpg)
At just first light in surge and drift,
Within the darkling seas,
In sheaves they swirled -- as winter mist
Evaporates in the trees.

I show you here one diatom.
God's smallest lamp of glass and oil,
Suspended in our ancient seas,
Then frozen far beneath our soil.

Beneath our star these diatomes,
Misprisoned cells of oil in glass,
In drifts descend into the sand,
And melt to stone while eons pass.

Within such stone they liquify,
And flow in streams through granite glades
To slumber in their vaults of pearl,
And dreaming dream the dreams of shades.

Awakened soul and substance now
What dwelt in seas then leaps to fly.
We see their shadows, cold as mist,
When contrails sketch our frozen sky.

I show you here a diatom,
God's smallest lamp of glass and oil,
That keeps us in mid-heaven safe
And warm above our winter's soil.

In life's first dawn they scintillate
And merge in death to darkened stone.
In sheaves they fade into the mist...
Unplanned? Unsought? Unmourned?

I show you here one diatom.

[Screaming Eagle]

I've seen these things when scuba diving at night. They're fluorescent at night when you move swiftly (as moving an arm) through water.