Thursday, January 17, 2019

Mystery of Life from its Beginning and End - and In Between

When a meteor got too close to earth and blew a breath of life. Could this be the beginning of life on Earth?
Dr Abe V Rotor
Bryophytes and fern carpet a boulder. Closeup photos
Mosses and algae cling on boulder and living trunk of Albizzia tree 
(Photos taken at the Ateneo de Manila University, Diliman QC

Shelf mushrooms colonize tree stumps, living on lignin and cellulose 
and breaking them into elemental form.

When does life start? 

When volcanoes settled into ash

three billion years ago.

When a meteor got too close to earth

and blew a breath of life.

When the virus' chemical bond deceives

a host cell as foster parent.

When a giant protein molecule became a blob

in the vast ocean of soup.

When paedogenesis rules over fertilization

and results in virgin birth.

When the stem cell predestined as embryo,

is also reserved as tissue or organ.

When plants, animals and protists are disguised

as gametophytes and sporophytes.

When countless spores disseminate with few

survivors finding foothold somewhere.

When mosses and algae carpet a rock,

die and resurrect the next season.

When mycellia long laid to rest wake up

to lightning and become mushroom.

When sulfur bacteria colonize volcanic craters

on land and on the ocean floor.

When fission, budding, cutting, tillering,

defy aging and mutation.

When does life end? 


When the world comes to a fiery end
five billions years from now.

When a comet gets too close

or a huge meteor falls to earth.

When the last member of a population

bids farewell to the species.

When the last forest is razed, coral

reef leveled, rivers reclaimed.

When flu virus becomes interactive

in three-way of more circuit.

When global warming shrinks the continents

and submerges the islands.

When the glaciers lay the mountains bare;

rivers, lakes and streams run dry.

When farms and pastures, and valleys

turn into wastelands.

When genes are engineered to befit

man's greed, but bereft the species.

When population can be contained no more

and the finite resources reach the limit.

When Malthus ghost is back with the grim

four horsemen of the Apocalypse

When intelligence makes man a robot,

and robot becomes man. ~

No comments:

Post a Comment