Phyllotaxis

 

By John McGrath

in the Thirteenth Century
discovered mathematically precise
progressions and went on to theorise
that zero, one and one and two and three
would show how rabbits breeding in a field
might multiply. Seven centuries went by,
then Turing in his garden one day spied
these self-same forms in sunflowers so revealed.
Such beauty and precision may be found
in ferns and fir-cones, flowers and all around
on land and sea – a golden ratio.
And yet for all this symmetry, we know
that sometimes flowers, like men, refuse to fit
our expectations and are finer for it.

© Circa 2014 John McGrath
Previously appeared in author's collection,
Closing The Circle (Moybella Press 2015)