Poem a Day April 22, 2012

PhotoSynThesis

light-changing
life-creating
making light
making life

holding sun
holding power
stored energy
storied cells

respire
exchange
extract
release

atmosphere adjusters
building blocks
climate creating
divinity defined

I have been in my garden. Today is Earth Day. The light coming down feels like a divine blessing, and yet I am aware (as my long though scattered and undisciplined studies have taught) that all this could change as rapidly as the loss of the plants that created our atmosphere.

Climate change? Yes. I can remember many decades, now — and what was expected in my childhood is no longer something we can count on. Now, when I plant my garden I choose short-season crops almost exclusively, something I can nurture through a bad crop year if necessary.

I watch the light coming through the leaves, filtering out some light, absorbing some light, diffusing some light and reflecting some light. A magical process that feeds not only the plant, but millions of micro-organisms that live in the soil as well as the macro-organisms that live in, on, and around the plant. The process protects us from breathing in our own waste, converting it to something useful, and replacing those gases with the one gas truly necessary for aerobic life: oxygen.

Photo-syn-thesis. Light, together with, the downbeat. The origin. The first note sounded in the long cycle of macro-life. From the phytoplankton in the first oceans to the tallest, oldest, biggest trees plants sustain most of the biological cycles on our planet (see black smokers poem for one counter-example)