Immortal
Claire Scott
Turritopsis dohrnii,
aka the immortal jellyfish
weaves through the roots
of the Tree of Life, languid,
unprepossessing, no way
to surmise this medusa shuns
nature’s most basic law.
T. dohrnii ages in reverse when
stressed by illness, injury or
assault, regressing from jellyfish
to polyp, becoming younger
and younger, a sort of reverse
metamorphosis.
Scientists in cramped labs,
bushy eyebrows askew
pour over petri dishes,
concluding T. dohrnii is silently
invading earth’s oceans, hitchhiking
in the seawater ballast of ships,
reproducing more and more offspring
ever immortal.
What if we too aged backward at the
first sign of heart disease, cancer,
a broken leg or perhaps a lost job,
an unfaithful spouse, a leaky roof,
falling through our greying sixties,
past our forties full of oppositional
adolescents
sighing through our twenties
love at first sight
sliding safely into the watery womb
giving birth to ourselves
would we want to start again
without a heart or brain
our mouth and anus the same portal
a few millimeters of translucence
trailing hair-like tentacles
floating forever in the ocean
of immortal jellyfish
other life long extinct
plenty of company, but no pick up basketball,
no sharing of Sartre or Schubert,
no glass of cabernet as the sun slants
through redwoods
but simply, very simply, immortal.
aka the immortal jellyfish
weaves through the roots
of the Tree of Life, languid,
unprepossessing, no way
to surmise this medusa shuns
nature’s most basic law.
T. dohrnii ages in reverse when
stressed by illness, injury or
assault, regressing from jellyfish
to polyp, becoming younger
and younger, a sort of reverse
metamorphosis.
Scientists in cramped labs,
bushy eyebrows askew
pour over petri dishes,
concluding T. dohrnii is silently
invading earth’s oceans, hitchhiking
in the seawater ballast of ships,
reproducing more and more offspring
ever immortal.
What if we too aged backward at the
first sign of heart disease, cancer,
a broken leg or perhaps a lost job,
an unfaithful spouse, a leaky roof,
falling through our greying sixties,
past our forties full of oppositional
adolescents
sighing through our twenties
love at first sight
sliding safely into the watery womb
giving birth to ourselves
would we want to start again
without a heart or brain
our mouth and anus the same portal
a few millimeters of translucence
trailing hair-like tentacles
floating forever in the ocean
of immortal jellyfish
other life long extinct
plenty of company, but no pick up basketball,
no sharing of Sartre or Schubert,
no glass of cabernet as the sun slants
through redwoods
but simply, very simply, immortal.
Listen to Claire read the poem here:
Working notes
I learned of the Turritopsis dohrnii in an article in the New York Times Magazine. The world’s only captive population of immortal jelly fish live in the office of Shin Kubota, a scientist who lives in a beach town in Japan, four hours south of Kyoto. The jelly fish are difficult to culture in a laboratory, requiring tedious hours of work. I played with the idea of being one of these jellyfish. Would immortality be worth the trade off? Not really.
About the author
Claire Scott has an MA in Counseling Psychology and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a private practice in Berkeley, CA. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania. Claire is a published poet who has been reading and writing poetry for many years. She is a mother of two children, has two children by marriage and four grandchildren. She lives with her husband in Oakland, CA.