How life began. |
And so life arose, a billion years ago or so, sparked by the energy of the sun, that ultraviolet light, in the murky ponds or back water swamps or perhaps the oceans vast, when bits of inorganic material, simple elements, became amino acids, on their way to self-replicating molecules, like DNA*. Abiogenesis, the scientific term, means life from non-life; it happened because we are here, just like so many other species on this blue Earth. What is it then? The hand of some God or gods, or perhaps merely the workings of nature—her natural laws discerned by thinking people courageous enough to question. Life’s diversity, so many species too numerous to mention, and yet, the truth be told that most of what has lived on Earth is now extinct. So it goes with life, and so it goes with evolution, the dying, the extinction events o’er spans of time we can’t comprehend. That’s the key; time, death. Birth, beginning, dawn, newness, life: one planet formed to host us and all of life throughout time…it is to sing. 40 Lines Writer’s Cramp Co-Winner 12-4-17 ______ *DNA—deoxyribonucleic acid, life’s master molecule, the famous, “double helix.” |