by Maryanne Hannan
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| This miracle plant was eaten into extinction 2,000 years ago—or was it? Silphion cured diseases and made food tasty, but Emperor Nero allegedly consumed the last stalk. Now, a Turkish researcher thinks he’s found a botanical survivor. Photo: Professor Mahmut Miski cups a handful of flowering Ferula drudeana near Mount Hasan in central Turkey. The scholar of plant medicine believes the species is silphion. —National Geographic, September 23, 2022 |
Oh you slice of yesteryear
Stalk of ferula drudeana
Last seen dribbling down
Nero’s chin, he of Roman
Emperor fame, wildly
Pursuing immortality
To enhance his lifetime
Omnipotence appointment.
Now a thousand miles away
And two thousand years later,
You sway alone and majestic
In a field, high above your
Gnarly root, insects feasting
On your pearly sap.
And loving it, they say.
Could it be you, and if so,
Where have you been
All this time? When we too
Needed your balm, the way
You cure baldness, epilepsy,
Maybe even cancer. When
We too needed to season
Our lentils, our fish sauce.
Look deep, to the earth,
You say, the hidden fields,
To the dirt, the goats,
The lowliest.
What was lost, now found?
More like, you say
What’s old is ever new-ing.
A retired Latin teacher, Maryanne Hannan lives in upstate New York and has been writing poetry and watching the world evolve for many decades.