Oh, what a lonely shark in Nebraska can do!

For anyone who missed it, a hammerhead shark in Nebraska gave birth to a baby she conceived on her own, with no male contribution (technical term: parthogenesis). The full story is here, on the NYT website.

Rumi, the sufi mystic poet, wrote a poem saying whenever a man and woman become lovers, a child is born, even if actual conception doesn't take place. The union of a man and woman is still an act of creation, whether in a one night stand or a marriage. This poem needs a new stanza:

Come come, called the mother, I will focus within.
Come come, little light, be born.
My time in confinement, surrounded by flat plains,
has resulted in you, my dear one.