On a shelf in the basement of the library of
Jena’s Academy of Sciences
behind bound copies of the (1895)
Jenaische Zeitschrift fuer Naturwissenschaften,
I found old drawings and manuscripts
together with chips of marble statues and pieces of dried ancient kelp taken from a cave in Capri.
The eggs of Nudibranchs, encased in amber,
shimmered under my microscope.
In awe I deciphered a new language from crumbling pages.
Scrawled in a strange alphabet: the letters the shapesof the cells of marine algae and hydroids.
I was discovering glorious things
their ancient authors never intended for me to see.
Drawn to these speckled and stained fragments
my heart and fingers pieced together a record
all the way back to the Cambrian Era.
Nudibranchs had dappled time with many
silences, but a few had written and signed their names:
Hypselodoris, Hermissenda, Flabellina, Dendrodorus.
I could scarcely believe that
Nudibranchs had lived in our oceans for eons.
After extreme labor I set their writings
over into my native German.
Anton Dohrn,
Stazione Zoologica, Naples, July 27, 1924.
Note: Nudibranchs lay their eggs in flat ribbons or masses attached to rocks, kelp, algae or other objects on the sea bottom.