L. U. C. A.*
A single cell, perhaps—let’s assume so— Directed by genes, though not very many,Self-organizing, self-similar,Protected by walls of lipids (the wonderOf fats, architects of a liquid world,Enclosing flow within flows of flowing),Sensitive to its environment,Able to distinguish structure from noiseAnd so manage its machinery of orderTo promote consistent metabolism,Burning chemical energy from rocks and gasesIn black and white towers on the ocean’s floor,Where the sun’s light cannot reach the lurid dark.
But the sun’s gravity stirs the molten core.It heats earth’s bowels to smokestacks of life In which our current bodies would melt away,So different are we from our ancestorUp in our light where it couldn’t have survivedPoisoned by the oxygen our kind must breathe,Toxic product of the plants we now eat.
This, a parable of life’s dependency on change During billions of years of random bonding,Electrons looking for a place to rest—A form perhaps where entropy seems to pauseAnd information lies in a conscious brainWhich suspends thermodynamics’ second lawFor a moment, a negentropic breath, or sigh,Lasting a million years, maybe, though, likely, lessSince our brains return to chaos so quickly,In a lifetime, or so, even shorter.
It’s just enough time to tire of the dreamOf a site of order not a utopiaBut an economy of exchangesConsciousness abhors since the dissipative fateOf all heat engines pollutes our bodies, too—Energy does not work unless it is wasted(Perpetual motion’s not even a joke),The unbreakable law our envy must concede—L.U.C.A.’s gift is also the life of death.
*Last Universal Common Ancestor
A single cell, perhaps—let’s assume so— Directed by genes, though not very many,Self-organizing, self-similar,Protected by walls of lipids (the wonderOf fats, architects of a liquid world,Enclosing flow within flows of flowing),Sensitive to its environment,Able to distinguish structure from noiseAnd so manage its machinery of orderTo promote consistent metabolism,Burning chemical energy from rocks and gasesIn black and white towers on the ocean’s floor,Where the sun’s light cannot reach the lurid dark.
But the sun’s gravity stirs the molten core.It heats earth’s bowels to smokestacks of life In which our current bodies would melt away,So different are we from our ancestorUp in our light where it couldn’t have survivedPoisoned by the oxygen our kind must breathe,Toxic product of the plants we now eat.
This, a parable of life’s dependency on change During billions of years of random bonding,Electrons looking for a place to rest—A form perhaps where entropy seems to pauseAnd information lies in a conscious brainWhich suspends thermodynamics’ second lawFor a moment, a negentropic breath, or sigh,Lasting a million years, maybe, though, likely, lessSince our brains return to chaos so quickly,In a lifetime, or so, even shorter.
It’s just enough time to tire of the dreamOf a site of order not a utopiaBut an economy of exchangesConsciousness abhors since the dissipative fateOf all heat engines pollutes our bodies, too—Energy does not work unless it is wasted(Perpetual motion’s not even a joke),The unbreakable law our envy must concede—L.U.C.A.’s gift is also the life of death.
*Last Universal Common Ancestor