David Morimoto, Journal of Conservation Biology, 1994

A Chance, Perhaps

 

Transient ties lend pulse and breath

to the shapeless sphere;

the rhapsody

of liquid, glassy Life.

 

Our fleeting glance,

deaf to its taps, can see

delights; dimly glimpsed sparks,

but mere shafts of glee,

facets flickering in the larger

unseen crystal tapestry

 

amidst the silent thunderclaps at sea.

 

The amoeboid mass, with endless reach,

weaves and wraps and retreats,

a Gaian canvas filigreed.

Through the maze it's drawn blindly,

it adapts and beats,

now trapped, now free,

in relapse it faintly breathes,

gasping, it revives and seethes

 

like floating rafts on a heaving sea.

 

The agaric's frail fruiting cap,

the stool from which we flap

in reverie,

veils its humic heart and lungs,

its edaphic, lacy, hyphal mass,

as forgotten ghosts of builders past

sleep their unheard, buried naps,

weary from the glow they cast

in mastery.

 

The beacon's source we fail to see.

 

Our feeble scan, aimed narrowly,

skirts the prism raised to Thee

to find our maps, to fill our gaps,

prayers for a dream to be.

With lens askew we skim and cache,

around our phantom niche we scratch,

only to collapse the mystery,

 

thinking it was scraps for free.

 

The miracle now cools and fogs;

The visage fades,

the lifeline saps.

Now we hear the distant strains;

feeling trapped we mourn our haps.

The fragments swirl about our grasps;

We clutch the shards but only bleed.

We fumble to repair the clasps,

frightful moans, plaintive pleas.

The howling of our desperate gasps

drowns our pulse's fading raps,

 

Yet still, we have a chance, perhaps

                        we'll see...