Michael Kirby, known to all who came into contact with him for his enthusiastic and learned love of the natural world, died in February 2011, and is much missed.
PLEASE CLICK ON THE TAB ABOVE TO HEAR THE POEM
Who will find the Ant-lion now?
Who will count the Silver Studded Blue
and visit the burrow of the Solitary Bee?
He rushed us through the undergrowth
to gaze in awe at the orange excrescence,
he claimed misplaced on a Suffolk bush,
and we were silent in the presence
of his enthusiastic knowledge.
After the memorial service
gazing at his publications list
I realized I had known his work
but had not linked Dr E. J. M. Kirby
with Michael Kirby of the Common.
So we had not talked of Gibberellins
or the germinative energy of barley,
never made that embryonic link
that parts of his life’s findings
had filtered into my work’s actions.
Who will proclaim the Ant-lion now?
Who will speak for the Silver Studded Blue
and guard the burrow of the Solitary Bee?
An emissary for wonder has made his last foray.
- Dr E. J. M. Kirby – ‘Michael’
