Backbone

Jona Rada

Bow down now, for here it comes.
That builder of backbone, master of time,
Bolting towards a border not yet defined,
Brewing an illusion of movement so sly,
It ends just as it begins.

Heed the rumble of the silent rhythm!
Bow down now, for here it comes,
Universal, yet so strict, urging all to act as one.
It comes to rest where new shapes rise,
Ending it all, right as it starts.

Riding through gradient tides,
Ancestral mother of winding spines, 
Bow down now, for here it comes,
Spirals up to bite her tail,
devouring the end to start again.

With each end begins new bone.
A phantom uprising lifts bodies whole,
Crashes at the shore where the nascent is born.
Bow down now, for here it comes,
From the end, starting it all.

Without this pillar being drawn,
Would you even know how to bow down? 
Hush, too soon for our minds to grasp,
That builder of backbone, master of time,
Just bow down now, for here it comes.

The Science

As an early embryo develops, the body is arranged into repeating body parts, or segments, through careful coordination in time and space. Waves sweep along the axis of the body, giving rise to what will become the animal's spine. This process is called segmentation and is conducted by the segmentation clock. The segmentation clock consists of a network of genes whose expression rhythmically rises and falls, creating cellular oscillations. These oscillations are coordinated between cells to create a travelling wave, like an audience wave spreading among people at a stadium. The wave sweeps the body from bottom to top, determining both the formation time, and the position, of each new vertebra based on where the wave halts within the body axis. I tried to emulate this process within the poem through the repetitive line, which sweeps the poem from bottom to top. The poem also starts as it ends, completing a full cycle. Learn more with this lecture or these reviews from 2024 and 2025.

The Poet

Jona Rada (she/her) is a Developmental Biologist from Kosovo who has always been interested in the creative side of science. During her research, she studied the link between signaling and metabolism in the segmentation clock of mice. She would like to wrap up her PhD research time with this poem about her field of study, and then embark on new avenues of Science Communication. This is her first published poem. She and her cat are based in Germany.

Next poem: Drift Theory by Daniel Naawenkangua Abukuri