Blue-green Algae (was Atmosphere) Revised

[elotrooso]

Blue-green Algae

In the beginning (well, not the very beginning,
to be precise), blue-green algae.

Beakerless mages of free oxygen,
colonizers of the shallows,
progenitors of many somethings
where nothing breath taking
flew before or walked.

Atmosphere makers: tiny gourmet consumers
of dioxides of carbon in water and light,
whose exhalations bellowed
oxygen into air and air into life,
lungs, limbs and toes.

Unicellular, prokaryotic and brainless to boot,
the without-which there's no grafting
neural networks onto a fish,
no neo-cortex that creates
and, creating, destroys.

Healers of holes burned in the epidermis of air,
the umbrella that shelters the worm,
wing, the flipper and paw.
If hands unweave faster
than algae can work,

then even the Goldilocks Zone -
huff and puff- might not be enough.





Atmosphere (Original)

In the beginning (well, not the very beginning,
to be precise), blue-green algae:

beakerless mages of free oxygen,
colonizers of the shallows,
progenitors of many somethings
where nothing breath taking
flew before or walked;

atmosphere makers, gourmet consumers
of dioxides of carbon in water and light,
exhalers of gas which, collected and nursed,
bellowed oxygen into air and air
into life: lungs, limbs and toes;

manufactories of neural networks
grafted onto a fish, a cortex
like brain coral building onto itself,
a neo-cortex that creates
and, in creation, destroys;

surgeons of punctures in the epi-
dermis of air, caretakers of the well-filtered
light and the many-fingered homes
of wing, flipper and paw, practitioners
of chest compressions, without whom

suffocation; even the Goldilocks zone
is not enough - huff and puff -
if hands unweave faster
than blue-green can fly the shuttle
or mend, molecule by molecule.

If anyone's to blame for it all, it's the algae
that breathed life onto land and land into hand.

A demonstrator's placard: Down with algae!

[Antcliff]

Hi Elotrooso

Interesting subject and engaging focus on the algae.

I especially liked...

beakerless mages of free oxygen,
colonizers of the shallows,
progenitors of many somethings
where nothing breath taking
flew before or walked;

The first six stanzas are one long continuous sentence joined with semi-colons and colons. Nothing wrong with that until the reader begins to lose the structure of the sentence and I must admit I was doing so as we move into stanza six:

suffocation; even the Goldilocks zone
is not enough - huff and puff -
if hands unweave faster
than blue-green can fly the shuttle
or mend, molecule by molecule.

I like poems built around the continuous sentence, but I am not sure what the gain is here. For me is rather masks the content rather than drives the poem along.

Enjoyed the listy sections.

Seth

[StephenDedalus]

Hello there, well firstly I like the flow of them mostly, I like the choice of words.

surgeons of punctures in the epi-
dermis of air, caretakers of the well-filtered
light and the many-fingered homes
of wing, flipper and paw, practitioners
of chest compressions, without whom

suffocation; even the Goldilocks zone
is not enough - huff and puff -
if hands unweave faster
than blue-green can fly the shuttle
or mend, molecule by molecule.

Those lines, I think they sound okay, and maybe I am just stupid but I completely lose the poem here, as in I haven't a clue what's going on. Might just be me, because I don't recognize the terms.

I like this though, some sort of science rendered in poetry isn't it?

[Ros]

My kind of thing - enjoyed this a lot, though I'm not sure it needs the last 3 lines. I could follow it, but the syntax is a bit difficult - and might perhaps benefit from being in shorter sentences.

I know what you mean by

even the Goldilocks zone
is not enough - huff and puff -
if hands unweave faster
than blue-green can fly the shuttle
or mend, molecule by molecule.

but the idea is rather compressed for the non-specialist. Is mend the right word? Not sure why the break on epi-.

Great idea for a poem and great flow of ideas.

Ros

[Macavity]

Entertaining E. I like the puncturing of epidermis. I think you could delete the facile concluding line and I don't think two mentions of light are needed.

all the best

mac

[elotrooso]

Hi, Seth.

Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.

The first six stanzas are one long continuous sentence joined with semi-colons and colons. Nothing wrong with that until the reader begins to lose the structure of the sentence and I must admit I was doing so as we move into stanza six

Thanks for noting that. The reader losing their way is definitely not a sign of success and, as a reader I find it annoying, so I am grateful you read to the end.

I like poems built around the continuous sentence, but I am not sure what the gain is here. For me is rather masks the content rather than drives the poem along.

Again, if the structure/syntax is masking the meaning and causing the piece to jutter, then it is not working. The interconnectedness and complexity that is driven by these simple organisms is the foundation of both the structure and meaning of the piece, so if that isn't coming across then I've missed a boat.

Must admit my favourite stanza (as it stands) is also the "beakerless mages one.

[elotrooso]

surgeons of punctures in the epi-
dermis of air, caretakers of the well-filtered
light and the many-fingered homes
of wing, flipper and paw, practitioners
of chest compressions, without whom

suffocation; even the Goldilocks zone
is not enough - huff and puff -
if hands unweave faster
than blue-green can fly the shuttle
or mend, molecule by molecule.

Those lines, I think they sound okay, and maybe I am just stupid but I completely lose the poem here, as in I haven't a clue what's going on. Might just be me, because I don't recognize the terms.

I like this though, some sort of science rendered in poetry isn't it?

Hello, StephenDedalus,

Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.

Thanks for noting where you lost the thread. Given that this is also the vicinity where it became problematic for Seth, I'll have to reconsider.

Yes, a little biology, a little evolution, a little ecology stirred up into something of a beef stew?

I'm pleased that you liked it, despite its obvious failings.

[elotrooso]

Hi, Ros.

Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment. Given your sciency pieces, I must admit I was hoping to get some feedback from you.

My kind of thing - enjoyed this a lot, though I'm not sure it needs the last 3 lines. I could follow it, but the syntax is a bit difficult - and might perhaps benefit from being in shorter sentences.

I am pleased that you enjoyed it.

Ah, yes, the last 3 lines. The final line was an absolute last minute addition prior to posting the piece; it was no doubt a bit of pre-emptive dismissal of the piece in anticipation of the crits it might receive. Sorry. I should have resisted. The penultimate line and the one preceding it were an attempt to turn the piece on its head and put the blame (sarcastically, I guess) where it belongs. If these two lines go, what becomes the last line of the piece is much too weak for a concluding line and would need re-casting, as, it would seem, does the whole stanza.

The syntax and structure as a long, winding sentence seems to be pretty uniformaly problematic.

I know what you mean by

even the Goldilocks zone
is not enough - huff and puff -
if hands unweave faster
than blue-green can fly the shuttle
or mend, molecule by molecule.

but the idea is rather compressed for the non-specialist. Is mend the right word? Not sure why the break on epi-.

Great idea for a poem and great flow of ideas.

Thanks for noting that you got the intent of the Goldilocks section. Yeah, I guess it is a bit compressed. Hmmmn.

'Mend' might indeed not be the right word. I thought of 'darn' as in darn a pair of socks or a piece of knitting, but didn't like the possible ambiguity of darn (as in 'darn it all') and didn't want to mix the weaving image with a new knitting one.

I hoped the break on epi- would mirror the holes, ozone, being fixed in the role of surgeon.

Thanks, Ros

[elotrooso]

Hi, Mac.

Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment.

Entertaining E. I like the puncturing of epidermis. I think you could delete the facile concluding line and I don't think two mentions of light are needed.

I am pleased that it was entertaining. Although a sciency piece about a serious topic, it was intended, despite the talk of precision in L1-2, to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

Pleased you like the break on epi-. I thought it was kinda fun.

Thanks for the comment about the use of 'light' twice. The intent is,in the first instance, light as food and, in the second, as threat. I will re-consider.

[Macavity]

Pleased you like the break on epi-. I thought it was kinda fun.

Me too...

[Ros]

Actually, I feel

if hands unweave faster
than blue-green can fly the shuttle.

could be quite a strong ending, if you decompress the previous bit a little.

[elotrooso]

A couple things. I've been locked out for a bit. A bit of password senility. Not to worry, found my false teeth in the oven.

I have re-read my responses to all the crits. I hope that my stating in an earlier post that I was specifically hoping to get some feedback from Ros (because of some of her sciency pieces) was not misinterpreted by anyone as meaning I valued the other crits any the less. That was most certainly not the case, and I apologize if it seemed so to anyone.

Mac, I was a bit hurried in my response to your crit (in not dealing with your comment on the last three lines.) The last one surely should never have been there. The second and third last? Need to re-think them.

Ros, intersting thought on possible placement of an ending.

I don't want discourage others from commenting on the piece, but from the crits so far, I think it safe to say this one is going to have to be set aside and allowed to hibernate so that I can approach it with renewed eyes and ears.

It is really useful to have other eyes on it - especially when there is some general consensus on the infelicities.

Thank you all.

[cynwulf]

Sorry I came to this rather late, so can't add anything to the critiques. Very pleasing to have a touch of science on the forum, there's so much poetry in science it's a pity it's not taken up more. Don't leave this in diapause too long, look forward to the butterfly emerging soon.
Regards, C.

[elotrooso]

Hi, C.

No problem. Thanks for reading and commenting.

I agree completely: there is indeed a lot of poetry in science, and it is a challenge to express a sense of it.

Cheers.

[ray miller]

I usually find poems of this nature very heavy going, but I managed to grasp most of it. A few stumbles

beakerless mages of free oxygen, - nobody else seems to have questioned mages, but that won't stop me. A mage is a magician, I now know, thanks to Google. That can't be right. A typo for images? But what's a beakerless image. What's a beakerless anything, come to that? This is why I struggle with science.

where nothing breath taking
flew before or walked; - I like that

into life: lungs, limbs and toes; - I'm not keen on toes. Yes, outermost part perhaps, but part of limbs, which you've already got.

surgeons of punctures in the epi- surgeons of punctures sounds wrong, ugly to me.
dermis of air

if hands unweave faster
than blue-green can fly the shuttle
or mend, molecule by molecule. - don't get that bit

I'd definitely lose the last line, maybe even the last 2.

[elotrooso]

Hi, Ray.

Thanks for taking the time to plow on through and then even more time to comment. Helpful to see exactly where and what you stumbled on. I know this kind of thing is not everybody's cup of tea, and that is absolutely fine with me. There's potentially a different sort of acuity to be had from a crit that is not as comfortable with the science. There's a balance to getting the science halfways true enough and getting it meaningful enough for a more general audience. This piece obviously has a way to go yet.

"Mages" hearkens back to alchemy and early science, part magic, part science part experiment, part utter nonsense (even Newton was part magician/alchemist/mage as well as scientist); beakerless tries to pick up that the algae don't have, or need the glassware or a brick and mortar lab to perform their "magic". They are uni-cellular magic/labs all on their own.

Toes, I was hoping, would help anticipate the homology of wings, flippers and paw. (Note to self, the homology better served using fingers than toes.) Will think on "toes" and surgeons of punctures" both. Thanks. Certainly don't want "ugly".

The mending by molecule is the re-establishment of the chemical balance that protects, shelters, feeds.

More for me to think on. The ending pretty unanimously is in need.

Again, Ray, thanks for engaging with a piece you found a slog; appreciate the time it took.

E

[ray miller]

I wouldn't have called it a slog. There's enough poetry to keep me engaged. Even now that I kind of understand beakerless mages, I'm astonished that you came up with the expression!

[elotrooso]

Revision up, for those what's cares abouts such fings as wevisions.

K

[Ros]

Of course we care!

I'm still enjoying this, but I fear it may have a bit of a limited audience still.
I see you've added another idea - Healers of holes burned in the epidermis of air, - again, that works if the reader knows what you're talking about! Though surely the ozone is created by uv light, rather than the algae?

Ros

[elotrooso]

Ros, thanks for coming back. I'll just have to settle on a limited audience, I guess. Hopefully the revision is at least clearer for some readers.

The ozone idea is just more explicit than previously. My chemistry is to say the least ancient. But the oxygen gas (O2) that eventually becomes the ozone (O3) and then acts to filter the uv is mostly sourced at the algal level, if I'm not mistaken. (But I'm quite prepared to be corrected and, if necessary, change the piece again. Off to see what I can find.)

[Edit: for sciency types re the chemistry involved: Let's see if I can post a link: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/csd/assessment ... yquestions

UV splits O2 molecule to two O atoms, which being reactive, each O atom recombines with a separate O2 molecule to form an O3 molecule of ozone. Most of the UV never makes it through the upper atmosphere or none of us would be around.]

The logic I'm trying to get at is: no blue-green algae > not enough oxygen in the air for the crawling, walking, flying things we know and, when we destroy ozone, without the oxygen production of the algae to repair the loss, we're all in trouble.

[xanadu]

Good content here and the revisions help. Being of a scientific background I can see the message which comes across. One small point: prokaryotes by their definition are unicellullar so there may be a duplication of ideas here.
Still,it's an interesting piece of work. Well done.

[elotrooso]

Hi, xanadu.

This is my third attempt to respond to your post. Not sure what the problem is.

Anyways, thank you for coming back to the poem and reading the revision. Thank you for your kind comments.

A bit of explanation, if I may. You are correct, of course, prokaryotes are by definition unicellular, but the identity of the terms does not work the other way around, namely not all unicellulars are prokaryotic. (Correct?) The non-nucleated (prokaryotic) cell types are much the older form of life than the nucleated (eularyotic) cell types that make up us humans and the other animals in the piece. That seniority of life form was part of why prokaryotic was added to unicellular.

Strictly speaking, I guess, the same objection could be held against the brainless to boot bit: prokaryotes are brainless by definition, but seemed a worthwhile point to make.

Glad to hear the revision helped. Thanks for taking the time.

Cheers

Ken