Flowers For Socrates

by Nona Blyth Cloud

Survival sometimes hangs on unlikely skills.

The Basilisk Lizard (Basiliscus basiliscus) has been dubbed ‘The Jesus Christ Lizard’ because it can run short distances on the surface of water when escaping from predators.

The Greater Wax Moth (Galleria mellonella) developed the most acute hearing ever recorded by scientists, a range that extends past that of Bats, it most common predator, to better enable it to avoid being gobbled up.

African Elephants have over twice as many olfactory genes as indomestic dogs, and five times more than in humans, beating out rats, the previous record-holders, so they can smell water and trouble like grassfires over great distances.

As humans have developed ever more complex and heavily populated societies, we have also developed odd survival skills: the wry jest in the face of disaster, an appreciation of irony and the nonsensical, and dark ‘gallows’ humor in the face of death.

Here are some poets who certainly know all about humor as a survival skill.

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This poet is really some anonymous authors of antique fairy tales and nursery rhymes collected in the 1760s.

Mother Goose

Hey, Diddle,Diddle

Hey, diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;

The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

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