UniVerses

Reflux
 
Steamed by torrid rays on tropic seas
humid air forms nimbal watermarks
which skyward bloom until the droplets freeze
then thunder earthward, closing reflux arcs.
The sodden rivers scour silicious crags
extract the carbonaceous molecules
and wash the vomited, volcanic slag:
organic food to fill the fetid pools.
These fertile fens make incubators
where first foments biotic gruel,
in vile fermenting percolators,
germinate the seeds of nuclear fuel.
Evolved from plasma from a dead star’s core
the antecedents of this poem’s creator

Chemical bonds combine and break apart. For a while earth was too hot for complex organic molecules to form, but it cooled to a range of temperatures where macromolecules survive. The atmosphere maintained a steady flow of mineral laden water to feed the growth of diversity in this complex soup. In time, something miraculous happened.

To our eyes this bubbling broth of molecules both large and small should have  simmered and dissipated. Yet clearly we are missing something, because that is not what happened.

We do not yet understand the energy states that govern the interaction between such complex molecular systems. When the intricacies exceed some specific point, new thermodynamics drive the mixture. Some integral of the behavior of individual molecules favors the  self assembly of highly complex interactions that our science says are impossible. This force induced the partitioning into corpuscles which became living cells.

Chemical reactions are predictable, governed by the laws of thermodynamics. Under a given set of conditions, we can predict how molecules will behave, which is how we make synthetic materials from nylon to silicon chips

The existence of life proves there are force fields at work that favor the organization of molecules into vastly complicated systems. An energy that we can only detect indirectly by observing its effects.

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