"Symbiosis or Death": - Rhodes University

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dissolves” (line 46). He is left with “An image, accountably desolate” (line 49) and
repeats his earlier question: “Where do you sleep, far-flyer” (line 50). The poem ends
with him disconnected from the ecological matrix.
This poem has slippery implications. Livingstone is, I think, communicating an
impossible prerequisite: that humankind should forego the perception that we are at the
apex of the living world; that we need to acknowledge that the ants are ecologically wiser
than we are. This shift in view would require imaginative gymnastics of the kind he
demonstrates, fleetingly, in the poem. In short, our anthropocentrism has disconnected us
from nature and it is only through imagination that we may reintegrate ourselves, become
part of nature and so obviate or stem “the marshallings of the all-night sea” and avoid a
cataclysm. The title of the poem gives some hope, for homoeostasis implies that, if the
Earth’s internal regulatory processes (the natural law) are followed, it is possible to
change course, as it were, to move into a new, different state of constancy. Homoeostasis
counteracts external disturbance and is thus one way of counteracting ecological
destruction or abuse.
Other poems (not analysed here) which show humankind to be part of Nature are
“Stormshelter” and “Iscariot” (S 11 and 22) which use ancient lore and religious doubt
respectively to examine human ways of finding unity with nature. “Giovanni Jacopo
Meditates (on his Regio absens)” (AU 70) examines the pastoral ideal.
In summary, through the relatively few poems which examine the dimension of
humankind as part of nature, Livingstone implies that man is incapable of existing as a
purely natural being. Further, there is no direct route to our living harmoniously with
nature. The above poems suggest that imagination is the gateway through which a closer
union with the natural world can take place. In “Sax and Marimbas” the music forms the
link. In “Gentling a Wildcat” and “A Piece of Earth” the poet imaginatively identifies
with the animals in the poems, and in “Homoeostasis” he extends this identification into
entering the consciousness of the insect and the bird. Livingstone begins to use religion
and art as possible routes towards a deeper understanding of humankind’s position (or
non-position) within the natural world. These, too, require imagination as a catalyst.