Wormholes

Really? Okay. They come in two varieties. Do you want the fact first or the fiction?

Fact: There are over 3,000 species of worms globally. Of these, earthworms - 27 known species in the UK - serve a vital purpose by making wormholes (systems of tunnels) in the soil. These wormholes help to aerate and drain soil as well this keeping it healthy. Earthworms have been called the living, breathing engineers of the underworld, and no lesser a figure than Charles Darwin afforded them this accolade:

"It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organised creatures.”

wormholes on earth (assuredly)

As important as the structural impact of their tunnelling activity (known as bioturbation, my word of the week), is their agency in recycling nutrients through their diet of dead plants, leaves, fungi and bacteria, breaking down organic matter and converting it into rich, friable soil. Bravo earthworms, without whom et cetera et cetera.

Fiction: It is posited by theoretical physicists that tunnels in space-time may be possible, and if they were to exist they would allow rapid movement from one region to another without the need to travel thousands of lightyears to get from a to b; a nip through or short-cut in the convoluted fabric of space-time, if you like.

wormholes in space (allegedly)

That's great as a premise for imaginative flights of science-fiction, but the hard physics of it suggests that even if such wormholes exist, matter may not exit the tunnel in the same state it entered, if it even emerges at all. Not for the faint-hearted. Leave it to the Time Lords.

And then there's Marilyn Monroe, at which point you're possibly wondering how we got here. Think of it as an imaginative wormhole.

For all her (dumb) blonde bombshell sex-appeal persona, Marilyn loved reading, both fiction and poetry. There are over 100 published photographs of her reading books, and these were not simply staged shots. She was a bookworm with a personal collection of over 400 titles, including works by James Joyce (she read 'Ulysses') and Thomas Mann. Her favourite poet was Yeats and she even wrote poetry herself. 

Marilyn Monroe (bookworm)

I found that quite heartening, given a recent report into literacy in the USA suggests that 21% of the adult population is illiterate (can barely read) and 50% have never picked up a book since grade school. 

Maybe it wasn't so surprising that she married one of the leading playwrights of her era, a better proposition than a retired baseball player.

I have an idea for a poem about Marilyn Monroe as a bookworm, bit I just haven't had the space-time to develop it yet. It's waiting patiently in some white hole of the Imaginarium, but I'll add it below when ot appears. Right now, just the title will have to suffice.

Book Your Sexy

tbc

Thanks for reading, S ;-)