Tap Dancing the Leaves
Katya Dimitrova Petrova
Tap
dancing
the leaves, Miss
Droplet falls through,
She sheds while she spins
Her mist-erious truths
Slow-
motions the bark
With the moistest of gaze
slow dance in the dark In
Romantic embrace.
Drop
slides down
the stem, till she touches
its knuckles. The soil exhales
invitingly and smiles with
a chuckle
She’s
Conducted
yet not adhered[1],
To the aggregates’ grip
Percolating the soil matrix,
she ventures down deep. This
dirt maze fascinates her, It´s
dark, but she won´t weep.
Macro
-corridors, micro-
galleries, Animal Burroughs[2]
writing songs in alley ways, Miss
Droplet strikes a pose and pauses her
travel, At the capillary Fringe[3] festival, on a
stage made of gravel. She is happy, relentlessly
waltzing around, with excited applause
from her million hydrogen bonds[4]
Her
act is not
finished, for she
ain’t here alone. With
Droplet came her sisters to
the Critical zone[5]. Their dance
performance is beautifully enticing,
All water ladies synchronously
tap dancing
Their
magical tapping
was noticed By plant
roots up-taking Food and drink
from the soil – new sap in the
making
Miss
Droplet turned
around pirouetting, the
roots with a smile gifted. Smoothly
she rose, levitating, for she was
hydraulically uplifted.
Pump
me up, she
said, I want to meet
the Xylem[6], Take some,
N, P, Ca[7] with you! Whispered
her Psilocybe[8] kin. Some funk
dance was long overdue...
Our
tap dancers
whirled happy in the sap,
Now was indeed time for more flow,
for some good hydro rap. To the top, with the
blob, pump them up, it won´t stop, Keep the
water column going and pressure won´t
drop.
Days
and nights
she danced non-stop
la bachata, “You forgot the
blue sky”, Smiled wisely the bright
stomata[9], Her juicy lips opened slow
with a sigh, “It is time for you my dear,
to get on your flight. Your brother the Cloud has
long being awaiting. Vapour pressure deficit[10] will
help you elevating, The wind shall help your recycle,
Travel to your next adventure in our beloved
(GREEN) WATER CYCLE
[1] …adhered to the aggregates’ grip – water close to the soil aggregates can bind strongly to them via hydrogen bonds, referenced later in the poem. This is the so called capillary water, which is the portion of water less “mobile” in the soil.
[2] Animal Burroughs – play on words, makes a reference to animal burrows, which are important pathways for water to infiltrate deeper in the soil, especially when soil is close to saturation. At the same time refers to William Burroughs, an American writer and visual artist (1914 - 1997).
[3] capillary Fringe festival – play on words. Capillary fringe is the dynamic boundary between soil unsaturated and saturated with water. In this subsurface soil layer groundwater seeps up from a water table by capillary action to fill the soil pores. On the other hand, Fringe festival makes a reference to Edinburgh Fringe festival in Scotland, a major cultural event which takes place during the month of August and features thousands of artists and art disciplines.
[4] hydrogen bond - an attractive force between a partially positive charged hydrogen (for example, found in the water molecule) and a partially negative charged atom (for example, a clay molecule part of a soil particle).
[5] Critical zone - The Critical Zone is Earth's outer skin, which “extends from the top of the vegetation canopy through the soil and down to fresh bedrock and the bottom of the groundwater” (Grant & Dietrich, 2017).
[6] Xylem - The tissue of vascular plants that conducts water and minerals, provides support, and can form the woody tissue of plants.
[7] N, P, Ca – nitrogen, phosphorus and calcium. Essential nutrients for the plants, found in the soil
[8] Psilocybe – genus of gilled fungus (mushrooms). Here their closeness to the plant roots alludes to the often symbiotic or mutualistic relationship between mycorrhizal fungi and plant roots.
[9] stomata –microscopic openings on plant leaves which allow exchange of gases (water vapour, CO2, O2) with the atmosphere
[10] vapour pressure deficit - the difference between the amount of moisture in the air and how much moisture the air can hold when it is saturated. Once air becomes saturated water will condense out to form clouds. High vapour pressure deficit favours evapotranspiration from plant leaves, but can also result in a “safety-driven” closure of stomata to avoid excessive water loss from the plant.
The Science
The poem follows closely the journey of a water droplet through the water cycle and focuses on her stay in the soil and inside a tree. She, Miss Droplet, is a dancer who moves through a variety of dance styles as she would move through/become part of different hydrological processes within the water cycle. There are also a lot of play of words and heavy terminology from soil, plant and water sciences, which are hopefully clarified in the footnotes.
The Poet
Katya is a Doctor in Geosciences, specialised in Hydrology, currently working on plant-soil water interactions in the field of Ecohydrology. A dancer since her last milk tooth fell out, she channels her geekiness through small poems and poetry has always been a hobby. Tri-lingual, she believes in the power of language and science and deeply appreciates all the art forms of nature. Find her on Twitter @DimitrovaKatyon.
Next poem: The Prairie is Always Alive by Tessa Seifried