Frail Chemical Machines

Frail Chemical Machines
© Surazeus
2024 08 10

Our bodies are frail chemical machines, 
woven by unconscious love of the Sun 
from atoms that connect in molecules 
which spiral from first flash of the big bang 
in complex networks of neural programs 
which conjure consciousness from beams of light. 

When six electrons in two twirling rings 
connect carbon atoms in spiral coils, 
they bloom in branching tree of chemicals 
which forms organic body with four limbs 
in swirling dance of hydrothermal vents, 
designed by ambition of Mother Earth. 

First Mother of spine-bolstered quadrupeds 
crawls up fresh-water river on four limbs 
and swims in sparkling lake one million years, 
then rises tall from lake of dreams at dawn 
to climb the tree of life on sun-bright hill 
where she eats fruit and sings with heart of love. 

Evolving more efficient body forms, 
fish to lizard to mouse to cat to ape 
to wingless angel reaching for the stars, 
we inhabit frail chemical machine 
on quest to transcend our material minds 
and grow toward ideal human to be God. 

Fish crawl up rivers to swim in clear lakes, 
lizards clamber over rough hills of hope, 
mice skitter between feet of dinosaurs, 
cats race in vast tangled canopies of trees, 
apes catch fish in tidal pools of coves, 
and humans tend cows and grow wheat on farms. 

The memories of each ancestor in my line, 
that they experienced in struggles to live 
four hundred million years of giving birth, 
conception to conception of each soul, 
program how my brain perceives our world 
so they are all alive inside me now. 

First Mother Amen welcomes refugees 
to shelter on her flat-top ziggurat 
where she presides in four-pole temple hall 
to bind our hearts in strong community 
through religion of stories that present 
heroes who protect our bodies from harm. 

From Hill of Amen in the House of Ptah 
humanity spreads out around the globe 
to fight national wars ten thousand years 
till First Mother wakes inside all our minds 
to maintain United Nations of Earth 
that nurtures our frail chemical machines.