"Symbiosis or Death": - Rhodes University

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The sestet explores the result of these “mundane heroisms”. The conquering
of fear is indicated at the poem’s volta by “Your heart wins” (line 9). The poet, in
referring to himself in the second person, objectifies his action and evokes a general
application to the human condition. The fears of the octave (induced by awareness of the
body’s frailty) are assuaged by the workings of the heart, but not without ambiguity. The
participial phrase “confronting life” either refers to the predatory, biological process of
life itself or (if “confronting” is read as the main verb) to the act of facing up to life. In
either case, his protection against life is his human emotion. Like the crab of the first line
he has a protective shell or “armour”, but his is earned through the workings of his heart.
He leaves the armour “unlatched” or open to the possibility of love. Does he mean human
love or Edward O. Wilson’s concept of biophilia? In an earlier poem, “Loving” (RB 32),
Livingstone conflates eros and biophilia: “Loving you I love … an unsullied earth” and
offers love as the key to an ecological understanding of human existence. In “A
Darwinian Preface” he opens himself to the Romantic ideal of the love of nature or
biophilia. Reverence towards the Earth is evident: “Each dawn claims thanks and
welcome, and gets blessed” (line 11). The “dawn” is a metaphor for both nature and
continuing life. Livingstone intimates, through the passive form of “gets blessed”, that his
reverence is beyond his control. This echoes the Romantic idea of the sublime and the
power of nature to bless its communicant. In “Lines composed a few miles above Tintern
Abbey", Wordsworth introduces what he calls “that serene and blessed mood” as an
… aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened …
The deep ecologists would say that Livingstone shows an atunement with wild nature. In
Wild Ideas, David Rothenberg likewise argues: “We may be part of nature, but what we
are part of remains larger than us, and deserves deference and enough respect so that we
may flourish unimpeded – if we can, given that so much damage [to the Earth] has
already been done” (xv).
But reverence is only part of Livingstone’s portrayal of man’s relationship to
nature in this poem. Evolutionary theory is also contrasted with the human emotion of
love. This tension between human biology and human consciousness creates an
oscillating effect in the poem. It is through imagination that this tension may be resolved.