A group of friends and I were in a conversation today about Harvey Cox's book, The Future of Faith, this being Sunday and all; when a particularly bright member of the group asked what we thought of Cox's having said, "Biologists say that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny," and it got me thinking first that I hadn't though about ontogenesis or phylogenesis for a very long time, probably not since a biology exam maybe sixty years ago, and then I thought Cox is onto something important given that every living thing, if I remember right, begins from a single cell. Well, not exactly... I also remember that sometimes a single cell divides and twins are born... I'll hold myself back and not go on a tangent here but will get back to the point that a mustard plant begins as a mustard seed and most human beings began as a single cell that managed to get fertilized and developed into, if I'm talking about myself, me. My Mother and Dad got together in that special way, and I am the result... a rare, one-in-a-million shot that lives now at the happy age of seventy-four-years, six months, and sixteen days plus approximately nine months. Amazing! And from a single cell that divided or multiplied (I'm an English major, not math or biology) and developed into an organism that doesn't stop developing until, until, until... well, that's another tangent. But the point is that I started out as a single entity... and I still am, regardless of what the minister said who performed the marriage ceremony which connected me happily to Margaret Elizabeth Martin, who produced, with only a little help from me, two beautiful children, and to whom I am still happily connected. I have a vague recollection that The Reverend Sheldon Russell said that we two, Margaret and I, became one when he pronounced us to be husband and wife. It's an interesting idea, and there have been times when I felt it to be so; but the fact is that in spite of however many cells that single cell developed into, the organism that I am and the organism that she is will always be two separate beings; and that, too, is probably another reason for celebration.

So back to Harvey Cox's reminder that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny: I agree that my development as an individual organism has been recapitulating and continues to recapitulate the development of my species... which prompts me toward another tangent... one that I will save for another day.

In the meantime I'll celebrate my continuing joyful relationship with Margaret Elizabeth Martin Miles. I'll also share a poem I wrote after getting an e-mail from a former student asking me if I know whether or not it's true that a person we both once knew had died... and after the poem, you'll find an image poem I made from a dead-looking plumeria shrub in my backyard that has begun once again to show signs of life and promise.
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Frannie Doud Showed Up Again

Frannie Doud showed up again today.
There she was on my computer screen
asking about Amy Gatsby.
Had she died, she wanted to know.
Was it true that she had killed herself?

How is it possible to answer without wounding?
Shall I say that Amy indeed is dead
and let it go at that
or shall I come right out and say
Amy shot herself in the head
somewhere in Alaska
because, they say, the man she loved
didn’t love her anymore?

I wanted to ask Frannie what she thinks about love
but decided to say only that love’s a powerful thing,
then reminded myself she knows at least that already
so I’ll say simply
I’m sorry to report that Amy died.
And she wrote poetry...remember?