#amoebas
The Evolution of Love
by Michael R. Burch
Love among the infinitesimal
flotillas of amoebas is a dance
of transient appendages, wild sails
that gather in warm brine and then express
one headstream as two small, divergent wakes.
Minuscule voyage—love! Upon false feet,
the pseudopods of uprightness, we creep
toward self-immolation: two nee one.
We cannot photosynthesize the sun,
and so we love in darkness, till we come
at last to understand: man’s spineless heart
is alien to any land.
We part
to single cells; we rise on buoyant tears,
amoeba-light, to breathe new atmospheres ...
and still we sink.
The night is full of stars
we cannot grasp, though all the World is ours.
Have we such cells within us, bent on love
to ever-changingness, so that to part
is not to be the same, or even one?
Is love our evolution, or a scream
against the thought of separateness—a cry
of strangled recognition? Love, or die,
or love and die a little. Hopeful death!
Come scale these cliffs, lie changing, share this breath.
Keywords/Tags: love, microscopic, amoebas, pseudopods, microbes, photosynthesis, darkness, night, stars, evolution, shared breath
Apr 9, 2020
Apr 9, 2020 at 5:03 AM UTC
I looked through my telescope
and saw the seas of Mars
I gazed at the rings on Saturn
and various and sundry stars
If we're alone, or so unique
the universe so large
expanding at the speed of light
why aren't we the ones in charge?
Time will pass
and evolution may prevail
or maybe we're just all alone
another biologic fail
Science and chaos
neutrinos and ion quarks
just some more amoebas
staring up into
the dark
Apr 22, 2019
Apr 22, 2019 at 12:05 PM UTC