"Symbiosis or Death": - Rhodes University

examine our own personal understanding of the world, we may find that this
concept is both necessary and familiar. (41)
Does Livingstone’s poem help us both to visualise an interrelated world and to examine
our understanding of this world? I believe it does. Its deeply ecological theme is not
immediately apparent because this concept of interrelatedness is so hard to comprehend
and describe. Livingstone uses ironic humour to convey this message – it takes a leap of
imagination (or humour) to see the coelacanth as our progenitor.
“Address to a Patrician” takes the form of an address where the fish is given the
status of patrician, a reference to a Roman founding father. The title contains the idea of a
progenitor and of ancient lineage as well as the implied power which a patrician holds
over the populace. The forms of address, placed at the beginning of each stanza, include:
“old pea-brained survivor / – Latimeria chalumnae”, “early Devonian cousin”, “Bwana
Coelacanth” (line 12), “ancient funny-bone of God”, and “fish from long ago”. In this
series of addresses, the poem mimics a praise song, an African ‘izibongo’. Each stanza
examines the ancient fish from a slightly different angle, but throughout the poem its
“patrician” or ancient status is persistently emphasised. Hence, in stanza three
Livingstone lauds the fish’s royal status and its miraculous stasis. The parenthetic
statement, “– may your shadow never grow less –” (line 16), is an evocation to the fish,
literally, to remain as or where it is. The phrase is frequently used as a toast and is a wish
for prosperity and happiness (OED). By implication, this is also an invocation to the
thwarting of mutability.
The interconnectedness of life on Earth – indicated in the final lines “your fathers
squirting on eggs / to sire everyone I know” – evokes awe in the poet. He sees this as an
even greater miracle than either the coelacanth’s survival of continental drift or its
“changeless chinless lineage” (line 26). The Earth’s re-formation and the cataclysmic
force of continental drift are poetically described: “when waves clawed 200 metres up /
or below today’s makeshift shores” (lines 24-5). What seems to be the solid physical
landscape is really “makeshift” and is a sombre reminder of the inevitability of change,
whereas the coelacanth is lauded for its changelessness in a changing world.
In the above poems Livingstone explores the Darwinian concepts of selection and
descent from a common ancestor and, particularly in "An Evolutionary Nod to God",
grapples with the ultimate cause behind life on Earth. "Cells at Station 11" (35)
142