Black And White Animals Poem by Denis Mair

[Thanks to Wang Hao for translating this into Chinese.]

It so happens that two of these creatures are found in China.
The style of color juxtaposition in the zebra is precise, linear interspersion. The style in the orca is like a streamlined racing symbol, in which color juxtaposition seems to show the beginning of a fluid blending process. The panda's style of juxtaposition is somehow style-defeating, and therefore playful. The black eye patches are roughly circular, but not centered on the eyes. So it's like a style that's not a style, and the same goes for the body's color blocs, which are only loosely correlated with limb-torso differentiation. As for the snow leopard, it has a dappling of black rosettes on a white sea, but within the rosettes are sectors or "petals" that are separated by hints of white. As I say in the poem, there is a lovely range of color schemes (all mutually antithetical)across the four animals. Claude Levi-Strauss would have appreciated it.
As for why the linear interspersion would have happened in Africa, maybe stripes help to break up the zebra's outline against a background of savanna plants. Maybe the snow leopard's dapping breaks up its outline against a background of rocks. The fluid contouring of the orca's markings seem to speak of its aquatic life-world. No such explanation suggests itself for the panda.
According to the research of Barbara McClintock, color markings in nature have to do with jumping genes that insert themselves into color-determining DNA code-segments at a certain embryonic stage. By jumping in, they switch off one color and allow another to show itself. They act as randomizers, but they are only allowed to act within certain areas to produce particular color marking effects. But the fact that this produces striation in one species, dappling in another, and contours in yet another...simply boggles the imagination. Whatever embryonic process varies the orca's black and white color blocs, it could not be remotely the kind of fluid streamlining that it appears to be externally. So it seems that a process at one level is "quoting" or referring to a process at another level. This strikes me as an aesthetic move on Mother Nature's part.//...

A few days ago I sent some random thoughts on three black-and-white animals to my brother Victor. He suggested adding the zebra, which kickstarted this poem. Shortly after finishing the poem, my siblings Tom and Heidi also played devil's advocates and said my poem omits the penguin. It is too late to rewrite the poem, but I will include the penguin and perhaps the skunk in my future thoughts on this matter.
  Some species of penguins have bright red or yellow feathers on the sides of their heads; they may also have bright color spots on their beaks. All penguins have pink webbed feet, as if to offset their tuxedoed, two-tone drabness. I have seen chicken with black feet, so I know that if Mother Nature had wanted to make penguin feet black, She could have done so.
  Black and white in penguins is a good color combo for standing sentinel in the Antarctic wastes. When motionless against a snowy background you don't see much, because the torso is white, their black wings are folded against their sides, and their black heads don't look big head-on. When they start walking against a snowy background, you see their black heads and necks moving side-to-side, and their black wings waving.
  They often swim in foamy surf, so their black backs show up well in foamy water near shore, but not so much in deeper water further out.
 The skunk's long single stripe along its dorsal axis is so distinctive that it serves as an instantly recognizable marker. By means of conditioned response, this marker can be readily associated with the skunk's foul scent.
I admit that my list of black and white animals is not exhaustive. My initial motive for writing this was to express wonderment at the color scheme of the panda, an iconic Chinese animal. (It so happens that the dialogue between white and black is an important theme in Chinese aesthetics.)Putting the panda among a group of black and white animals helps me bring its features into focus.

Herman Melville tried to get to the bottom of the "whiteness of the whale." I hope to get to the bottom of the "whiteness-and-blackness of the panda."
                     DM