Life creates the conditions for more life.
All is written in stardust,
from water and carbon, and
minerals deep in Earth’s crust:
Earth’s rocks and life’s building blocks
are here from January’s start.
Turbulent ocean, primordial soup,
Then spring, life stirs to play a new part.
Ceaseless microbial interlocking,
a dense summer of new chemical forms.
At last, jellyfish, the sponge, and
eventually marine worms.
For billions of years, until Earth’s
November, the only sound
is movement: waves, wind, rain falling
on sea and dry ground.
From creation of coal to a
giant dragonfly’s wing,
from dinosaurs’ demise to the
first birds to sing,
Life’s diversity blossoms
in the last month of this story,
setting the scene for art, farming:
imagination’s glory.
Hand-shaped tools until machines,
two seconds to midnight.
Time now to change direction, heal the scars
visible by satellite.
Notes
This poem accompanies the RoundView puzzle, our Global Shared Story. It asks us to consider how long it took for life to create the conditions for more life, and the possibility for human civilisation to emerge – and how quickly humans have damaged the global life support system we rely upon! But there is still time to turn to things around, and change direction, so we can fit within the natural cycles and learn from our Global Shared Story for the future.