Author

The evolution of a species was echoed in the evolution of an individual-they rhymed, he’d write, the development and diversification of a progress of an particular feature similar to the progress of an idea-and after tea and biscuits in the basement, after opening the morning’s mail, after tending to his climbing plants in the study, the old man laid the grey heron out on his work table and opened her lengthwise. In the tight crop of the bird he found small stones, bits of shell, of seaweed, a smooth blue fish. In the belly of the fish he found the silver grizzle of a smaller fish. And in that grey paste he found the hard pearl of a berry.