Hey, something is happening here...
In this petri dish, as it happens:
a happening!
Growths there are mushrooming, mushrooms
are blooming, growing
white, light and puffy. Soon they'll take flight,
abandon the dish,
perhaps to take over the world.
We'd assumed we'd get cultures;
but these are not those,
they long ago ceased to be cultures.
And whatever I said,
please don't call them mushrooms,
they merely resemble the things.
They are microbes. That is,
they are microbes that ceased to be micro.
Ex-micro, now macro - or well on their way!
Well, see for yourself.
You make of it... what?
Well, yes, you are right. It's not quite like that.
It's all so confused.
Nothing is anything there in the dish,
except that it's something quite else,
something unknown;
an unknowable thing.
They are life in a form
that can't interact -
except to destroy -
with the life that we know;
a process so different,
so set against ours,
our functions, our ways
of research, that there may come a day
they'll decide we're the pests;
that bio-diversity
stepped over the line
in creating us. They may opt
for a new diversity range -
for something no greater than one.
10 comments:
Very interesting, Dave. My first reaction, when I viewed the picture on Jinksy's blog, was that of wonder.
Wonderful to read ... I found myself reading faster as I went! :o)
Lots of theory in this poem, Dave. Goes to show you never know what will grow in a petri dish!
there's certainly a lot going on in that poem and it gives us plenty to think about too, with those images of microbes eventually taking over the world.
ah...this petri dishes thing reminds me of our lab :( anyway nice poem ...keep writing :)
Sometimes it's better not knowing what me might be in for......*gulp*
You never know what alien microbes are grown in a petri dish that could be used in chemical warfare, very thought provoking poem indeed :-).
"They are life in a form
that can't interact -
except to destroy -"
We have a hard time accepting that there is other life here, so different than ours (and not only so we can destroy it).
SG
I'd have to agree with you. That was my first reaction also.
Deborah
Good to hear that you enjoyed it. Thanks for saying so.
Mary
... or anywhere else, no doubt. There are more things on earth than...
Crafty Green Poet
Well, maybe they'll need to be quick about it, or there might not be a world to take over.
Muhammad
I thought you were going to say a kitchen!
Lena
No disagreement there! Welcome to you and thanks for commenting.
Windsmoke
Ah, now there's a thought!
Hannah
True... interestingly, there was news in the paper yesterday of a fossil billions (I think 6.5 billion) years old that used sulphur for fuel, not oxygen.
Dave,
First I was chuckling but then it got a little scary. Nicely done.
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