The Green Marvel – A poem of wonder and adulation.

I’m not sure is this really works yet. I might have to work on it some more. It depends on the meter of the words, certain speeding up and slowing down and the heavy emphasis of certain key words. I think you’d have to hear me read it to judge whether the flow is correct or not.

I wanted to produce an ode to that wondrous molecule chlorophyll. Without it our atmosphere would not have oxygen, life would not have developed aerobically and evolved into such sophisticated and elaborate beauty. All the animal kingdom would not exist.

Chlorophyll, a molecule of great complexity and wondrous properties converts sunlight to food and oxygen and powers nearly all life on this planet. Without it we’d all be slime.

Thank you chlorophyll. I love your green.

The Green Marvel

 

The green marvel of molecular architecture

Constructed of magnesium and iron,

Folded in organic delight

To attract the light and excite.

 

As electrons zip and water is split

Releasing hydrogen to do its will;

Mopping up carbon from the air

To create all the wonders of the organic;

To produce profusions of oxygen to spill

Into the atmosphere to boost life

Into the stratosphere of the evolutionary manic.

 

What an emerald wonder

To transform a planet and unleash life

To new heights of the organic.

Blue planet of water

Now green planet of organisms so rife

That they challenge the secrets of the universe

And explore the Big Bang’s daughter.

 

For chlorophyll it was the wonder of you

That unleashed this amazing storm;

That set the ball rolling down evolution’s gangplank

And clothed the bare rock

With the colours of a new dawn.

Without your twists and turns

There’d be no eyes to see

Or claws to shock.

 

Pigment with such transforming properties

To change atmosphere and great green seas,

To enable profusion of such complexities

That we are here to ponder your abilities.

 

Chlorophyll

You are the wonder

Of the world.

What magic chemistry

Set your sophisticated form

So that this spectrum of life

Could be unfurled?

 

Opher 28.2.2018