Sequels yes, but Nature abhors an encore;
Each frond is a performance, no two alike,
Though turgid understudies avid for glamour strike
A pose as if a ship could be becalmed for
Whirlwind fights while lying at anchor.
What roles of ephemera remain to conquer
When increments intently alive reprise
Never the same impersonator twice?
Man — “the thinking reed”? More the cunning fern,
The embryos uncoiling since the world began —
Line and deviation and a straitened turn,
The not quite concentricity of man.
Nature abhors an encore – A play on the saying “Nature abhors a vacuum” attributed to Aristotle.
Man — “the thinking reed” – Man was described as a thinking reed by the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) in his Pensées.
Straitened – Narrowed or restricted.