A Birthday Sonnet

This past weekend, I celebrated my 60^th birthday with friends and family from all over. One of the roasters was Ben “The Bard” Kerr, a professor at the University of Washington and colleague in the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action.

Borrowing from another bard, Ben waxed poetic about one of the lineages in the long-term evolution experiment and raised a toast with this Shakespearean flask.

ODE TO AN LTEE LINEAGE

Shall I compare Ara-3 to a summer’s day?

Thou start more humbly, but sure potentiate.

Rough spins do shake the darling bugs of Rich’s gaze,

And latecomer’s “fleece” hath all to port citrate.

One line’s long-shot passed by eleven lines,

And how was its controlled complex “skin” pinned?

Promoter capture, over some time refined.

By chance, with nature’s arranging force, trimmed.

But thy Cit-minus partner shall not fade

Nor gain possession of the flair of most

C₄ shall Cit^– snag, now spawned by carbon trade

Then on it turns ‘til lines will species now boast

So long these cells can achieve, so wise to see,

So long lives this work- and awe is rife, Lenski.