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Well then, let's take the Foraminifera.

They lived, since they were, and were, since they lived.

They did what they could since they were able.

In the plural since the plural,

although each one on its own,

in its own, since in its own

small limestone shell.

Time summarized them later
in layers, since layers,

without going into details,

since there's pity in the details.

And so I have before me

two views in one:

a mournful cemetery made
of tiny eternal rests

or,
rising from the sea,

the azure sea, dazzling white cliffs,

cliffs that are here because they are.

When is it spring?
When bumblebees brush their translucent wings
and blackbirds, each a little king,
in the evening of their royal gardens sing
when the sea wears brilliant blue and green again
and flocks of sheep graze diligently on the fen
and flocks of Ammonia graze slowly on an algal lane

When is it summer?
When golden waves pass around the fields of corn
and iridescent dragonflies the swaying reed adorn
when the marshlands steady green
is counterpointed by the flowers sheen
and shoals of nimble fishes cross the silvery sea
and shoals of tiny Ammonia drift reckless in their lee

When is it autumn?
When berries, red and black and blue
emblaze the bushes with a luscious hue
when beaches, ripe with stranded goods
assemble seaweed and exotic woods
when herds of crabs feast on the strand
and herds of Ammonia lay between the grains of sand

When is it winter?
When the vermillion evening sun
is caught in the hibernal grey net that the twilight spun
and stretched along the horizon between sea and sky
when northern winds the sharp-edged coldness ply
then life in the sea takes a well-earned rest
and all Ammonia dream, each hidden in its test

Have you ever noticed
how beautiful Gromia is as a protist
its body a perfect sphere
its filopodes staunch and clear
its tiny soul mingled with golden brown sediment
and wrapped by a honey comb membrane that is utterly elegant
with a pedigree that goes back to Cambrian times
and Neptun grants them a home without confines
theirs must be a happy life
as they prosper and they thrive

Time drops down as slow in our realm
as a seabird's feather dwindling to the ocean's ground
The abyss carries the weight of the world
and darkness preys upon the amber drips of time
Few things will ever change here and being free of boredom we value steadiness
We are dark stars spread on the night-soft ocean floor
and each of us is an island; this we recognize
but we are able to create a world of our own
We are castles and fortresses defying the surrounding emptiness
and offering home and shelter to many different beings
Each of us is a harbor anchored in the deep sea

I asked the allogromiid
the oldest and wisest inhabitant of the sea
(so it calls itself)
How does an ocean arise?

Hearing this question
the allogromiid beamed with pride
happy to share its knowledge
and emitting a bright orange glow

The ocean it said as big as it might be
is hatched in a puddle
A pond will be its cradle
where it will huddle
under duckweed and water lilies

Lakes will guard the ocean child
and it will spend its early life as a sea
For seas are part of the ocean but smaller
and their names carry on dreams in humans

There is the turquoise Caribbean
and the ice shielded Barents Sea
The Baltic with its tropic white beaches
and dark green spruce forests

The Red and Black and White Sea
all displaying different shades of blue
And the Coral Sea
where rainbows dip into the water
leaving thousands of colors behind
picked up by those who live there

And there are the five big players
the Pacific, the Atlantic, the Indian,
the Southern and the Arctic Ocean
Full of adventures for those
who dare to cross them

I mused about the allogromiid’s answer
and later on I asked the erudite foraminifer
Can you tell me how an ocean disappears?
Of course it said and busily plaited its pseudopodes
The continents drink them when they get thirsty
They sip them like a cup of coffee
and all that’s left behind is coffee ground
you call it mountains

Forget hydra and chimera
I know some mighty foraminifera
that are as poisonous as a basilisk
and as explosive as a stellar disk
at supernova risk

Their arms are manifold and strong
glistening bands that end in a prong
Whatever they catch they never let go
plenty of creatures dread this serious foe

Their homes are trenches they dig in the sand
their bodies half-hidden and ready to expand
and ensnarl whoever passes their lair
Oh humble human be cautious and aware
of Toxisarcon the perilous foraminifer

No roundness is rounder than your refined sphere
They say the world is round but this is mere
politeness; her poles are flattened-such deflection
you refuse; your globe is distinguished by perfection
And you hold a surprise inside your globular test:
some smaller ones hidden in that spherical nest!

Whirling swirling and curling around bacteria
Dancing prancing and advancing their cytostomata
Spinning swimming and skimming an algae on the move
Flinching inching and then squinching flagellas in their groove

And you?

Observe their terrific swerve
That moment you want to preserve
When they race in a sinusoidal curve
Press the shutter button with verve
Capture a picture think you are done
While they are

gone

Under the spell of plenty
Baculogypsina came into being
Shaped like little stars
adorned with floral pattern
and grooved spines to tiptoe along reefs
they are the art nouveau ornaments of the sea

They occur in mythical numbers
in a perpetually replenished abundance
Here is one and next to it another one
and so on until they end up as countable infinites

There is power in this plenitude
as galaxies of Baculogypsina
circle islands to form beaches
and pile up as sand around reefs
In the world of microscopic creatures
multiplicity can lead
to astonishing achievements

Up there is the desert
radiating in tellurian colors
enhanced by sunlight

Its tremendous void
filled by susurrating wind
that strokes over stones

You may not suspect it
but it is the sand
all those tiny magnificent grains
that hold the desert together

Down there is the reef
patches of corals, sponges
algae and anemones

A universe of swirling colors
swiftly moving like the fish
Or immobile except for polyps and tentacles
gracefully dandling in the rhythm of waves

And if you look close enough
you will see tiny bright threads
meandering along the reef

This is Shepheardella, a foraminifera
that comes closest to the idea
of a perfect shade of orange

It weaves itself into pebbles
bridges stones and algae
and sometimes interlaces
empty tests of its cousins
the soritaceans

You may not suspect it
but it is Shepheardella
that stitches the reef together

The scientist kept time with rowing
he went out on the lake
in a wooden skiff above him
a red kite trundled announcing
the daily recreation of the world
with piercing cries

This happened more than hundred years ago
I imagine the scientist dressed like a gentleman
according to the fashion of his time

Wearing a frock coat and a shirt
with a choker and a soft silken tie
and of course a hat as no gentleman
would leave his domicile bareheaded

He might have removed the tie
and opened the collar later on
when he was far from the shore
and shipped the oars letting the boat
glide on the glassy surface of the water

Maybe he contemplated the beauty of the lake
for in an early summer morning
its water is the anagram of light
just a bit more dense

Or he enjoyed the view
of the surrounding mountains
with their lace-work of glaciers
or maybe he was thinking
about Aristotle and Pliny
the forefathers of all naturalists

Or maybe it was none of that
and his mind was just filled
with a short repetitive phrase
“I want I want I want”
as is mine each time I go out
hunting foraminifers

A coarse and plain mantra
a primeval prayer
to the hunting goods

In those days it was sufficient
to plunge a tin can fixed on a string
into the lake until it hit the bottom
a low quantity of sediment was brought up
in it and for sure it contained foraminifers

Allogromiids with agglutinated tests
He also collected them
on walks along the shore
by taking sediment samples
as easily as we collect pebbles
or a bunch of wild flowers

The scientist described these foraminifers
and bestowed upon them simple
but elegant Latin names

Even the countryside had its share
of allogromiids he discovered a species
living in a small pond near a farm
I imagine the cows with their skewbald bellies
surrounding the scientist and snuffling at his back
when he bent over the pond edge

Since then nature had to become more productive
and small ponds disappeared
and those allogromiids could no more survive
in Lake Geneva and vanished as silently
as they had lived there

As with so many small things we lost them
while stepping forward into the future

I have seen the ammonites
they gracefully sailed through the water
their arms slowly trailing over the sediment
in search of food
their pearly shells adorned with rough-hewn ornaments:
ancient hieroglyphs that cannot be deciphered anymore

I have seen the dinosaurs
my family lived in their footsteps
when they moved through the shallow sea
the bottom rolled like thunder
and the sediment rose in large clouds
a turbid brown carpet

I have seen the furry bipeds
venturing into the sea
strolling with an equal amount of caution and pride
along the coastline
producing a lot of strange sounds
collecting bivalves and trying to catch fish

A young one of their species ambled through the puddles
left by the retiring sea
until he suddenly stopped, bent down and said "Oh!"
He saw us, living on an algal mat
perfect bright orange spheres
woven into a silvery-green tapestry

That's when they first discovered beauty

A foraminifera named Psammosphaera
displays a cragged test like a palimpsest
Scratch away the sand and gravel and unravel
a pale little moon sheltered by its agglutinated cocoon
an allogromiid round as a balloon, a magical rune
remaining unseen inside its home this in between

If there is no monster on the roof
with an allogromiid on its hoof
and no scarecrow in the barn
using pseudopodes to yarn
and no Pyrgo in the pantry
smoked and stored across the entry
and no dragon in the basket
guarding Nonion in its casket
and no cider in the cellar
containing Cornuspira as a dweller
and no ogre in the bed
wearing Patellina as a hat
and no Ammonia in the attic
striving to be acrobatic
and no grimoire on the shelf
dealing with the foram's self
and no Bathysiphon in the book
then the old witch cannot cook!

I asked the allogromiid:
What came first, the hen or the egg?
Funny question, replied the foraminifer
It was us, of course.

1.
A wheel an eye a reel
The ocean’s privy seal
A circle’s wonderful ideal
Who is so nifty and genteel?

2.
Chamber after chamber they grow
All of them neatly aligned in a row
Sediment grains are used as ornaments
Who are these marine monuments?

3.
Ruby red branches extend from a rock
Miniature forests and trees built of chalk
A translucent web and no leaf
Do you know the ones who weave?

1: Amphisorus
2: Reophax
3: Miniacina

Under the petal-grooved corals
in the tangled branches of algae
on the heaped grains of sand
lives the oracle to diatoms

Come, says the oracle, come
I will transport you in the safety net
of these fanned-out pseudopodes
to my marvelous gyroscopic dome

Look at the calcified furrows
gracing the entrance
You will be sorted heedfully
and arrive one by one

There is the possibility
to start a new inner life
in my transparent refuge
This glassy stronghold
keeps the world at bay

Come, says the oracle, come
Will you come too?

You are like a micro sun
nesting on the sea bottom
shining in warm yellow
or vivid orange all day long

Your rays of pseudopodes
build a translucent mesh
When you cast this net
what do you catch?

Certainly algae and bacteria
during the weekdays
While on Sundays you might prefer to dine
on a soup of dissolved organic matter

But such a finely woven net
trawls for more than that
You catch the shadow of a cloud
that sails along the firmament
And the sizzling fury of lightening
when it strikes the ocean

Sunrays get entangled
in your pseudopodial web
and frolicking gusts of wind
that dress the sea with whitecaps

And sometimes you capture dreams
that have been lost or forgotten
and finally transported by the rivers
into the sea like fallen leaves

What do you do with your surplus catch?
The sea takes it and transforms it
into a stream of air bubbles
that raise from the ground
dancing towards the ocean’s surface
to the eternal amazement and delight
of fishes

It is said that trolls consist of stone
Sure they must be pebbles at birth
Small and inconspicuous infants sheltered by a stone case
who grow into sturdy adults eating Caledonian granite
sprinkled with Proterozoic sediments

I sometimes wonder if trolls adopt agglutinated foraminifers
After all they could be well a juvenile stage in troll development
Consider Astrorhiza:
A primordial disc built of sediment grains
steering through the universe of an ocean
with its tubular extensions

Astrorhiza’s agglutinated prolongations
might well develop into a pair of stable legs
and a pair of arms for hands-on approach
And who would deny that with a little coiling effort
one such appendage can easily change into a lithoidal head

Of course once grown up trolls don't live in the sea anymore
Nor do they keep foraminiferal habits; they do what trolls do
Such as sitting together enjoying a cup of herbal lava tea
and a conversation about whether it is better
to lead an active or a contemplative life

Montaigne has discussed this in his essays
and Cicero and Seneca had definite opinions on this subject
but trolls probably built their own philosophy around that question
From time to time they also like to debate important issues
with the creatures that surround them
such as are the advantages of small and furry beings in their number
if not in their claws and teeth and what about the still smaller beings
that are eaten by them?

When they get older trolls like to sit down
quietly watching northern sunsets
that inflame the sky beyond the horizon
and sometimes they just stay seated
pondering the spectacular beauty of this daily event
growing trees on their heads and ferns around their eyebrows

Until one day they become too old and crumble into a million pieces
swept into the sea
and a new generation of Astrorhiza arises

There is a continent that dreams
anchored with its roots of stone
in the polar ocean’s wintry blue

A rimy blanket covers all of it
under a harvest moon of frozen gold
snowflakes ripen into icicle down

In its sleep the old land hears again
the whirring sound of a million wings
and a million trees are fanning-out
their leaves in a pleasant breeze

and rivers whose water mirrors
the color of the sky above
busily cross the continent
and sometimes fishes mount to their surface
with a silver twinkle of their scales

Such are the dreams of continents
and this one is guarded in its sleep
by Notodendrodes that grow along its rim
as tiny underwater trees
with dainty stems and branches
a bark of neatly arranged sediment grains
and leaves of tangled pseudopodes

In their delicate otherness
Notodendrodes keep a promise
that one day the continent will wake up
and hear again the whirring sound of a million wings
and a pleasant breeze will sway the leaves
of a million trees

The island is wrapped in Mediterranean scents
of herbs and pine trees
a sweet and wild airiness

People have settled on it
from different empires
and with different intentions
The entitled inhabitants

are lizards sparkling green
and olive trees as time keepers
older than anything else
that lives there

The sea that holds the island
wears Homer’s color: grape-blue
But around its green rimmed shore
the water is of translucent calm

and through the diaphanous surface
tufts of coralline red algae can be seen
that bow gracefully to the waves
their branches populated with foraminifers

of different tribes and various shapes
there are purple Peneroplis with striate tests
each of them a finely chiseled cornucopia
and Elphidium little wheels of fortune

that carry their color like a blazon
significant orange yellow or green
some of them loaded with ornaments
in baroque density attesting an opulent spirit

Laevipeneroplis prefer the puristic version
of a smooth test painted in hushed green
while Planorbulinella thoroughly attached
are mounds of rounded chambers

with superbly drilled pores celebrating precision
and Quinqueloculina call attention to them
by their sheer number and their tests
being the gamut for degrees of whiteness

The sea takes a broad view on dissipating treasures
It only requires curiosity to look for them

The open ocean is a conjugation of time
The line of water that melts into the horizon
has always been existing and will be there
Nothing on earth is more constant than that

The Wadden Sea is a conjugation of space
Land traces the water and water trails the land
and in this vast intermediate world
nothing is ever definite

When I went there for sampling
I saw that it was a busy shore
where sandpipers ran their errands
with swift movements their beaks like elegant rapiers
challenged the creatures hiding in the sediment

Seagulls sailed effortlessly through the air
always on the lookout for news
They registered my arrival
and how I walked along the coast
striding across the uncharted territories
of the mesopsammon

In such a large tidal flat there are boundless possibilities
of choosing sampling points

Take this said the god of mud and sand
who rarely lets somebody go without a present
and who is honored by worms and bivalves and most dogs

So I picked up a spoonful of sediment next to my feet
and another one from a puddle where diatoms covered
the surface like a brown velvet carpet and continued
until I hade filled the sampling jars

It only took the foraminifers a few hours
To climb up the walls of the jars
hundreds of tiny yellow dots
bursting with the clear and passionate energy
of those raised by the sea