The source for this erasure poem is “Spontaneous Revolutions” Darwin’s Diagrams of Plant Movement by Natalie Lawrence in The Public Domain Review. The essay examines a chapter in Darwin’s research to create a way to make movement of plant life visible to the naked eye. The essay is not very long and is utterly fascinating if you’re interested in botany or gardening. The 1843 illustration below is of the wild mock cucumber which is the plant Darwin used for his observations.

My “Something Small, Every Day (or so)” series is inspired by Austin Kleon’s piece here where he says, “Building a body of work (or a life) is all about the slow accumulation of a day’s worth of effort over time.”