Life is a script forever reading

‘It is these chromosomes… that contain in some kind of code-script the entire pattern of the individual’s future development and of its functioning in the mature state.’ Erwin Schrodinger, Physicist, 1943

‘The key image… is that of a species’ genes as a detailed description of the collection of environments in which its ancestors lived…The genes of a species can be thought of as a description of ancestral worlds, a ‘Genetic Book of the Dead.’ Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow, Penguin, 1998

‘The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.’ Ecclesiastes, The Bible

‘The genetic code was cracked in the 1960s, when Marshall Nirenberg, Har Khorana, and Severo Ochoa figured out that three letters of DNA encodes a particular amino acid. A three-letter word made of four possible letters could have more than enough permutations to encode the 20 amino acids.’ BBC Science

‘But Darwin had invented a new concept, and ‘everyone’ did not know how to read it, as metaphor or as force.’ Gillian Beer, Introduction to the Origin of Species, 1859, Oxford University Press, 1988

‘The genome that we decipher in this generation is but a snapshot of an ever-changing document. There is no definitive edition.’ Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Fourth Estate, 2000


Life is a script forever reading

Life is a script -
forever reading,

being read;
adapting -

revising, growing,
shifting, changing.

New lines and chapters
recited in each eye, hair,

complex interaction amid
Time’s enormous pages -

light sampled, as blood
identity, original energy,

life’s brilliant fuel
for any conversion -

sound of a heart,
sound of a wave,

written on Earth’s
stil evolving score.

One brush with a flower,
weary bumping bee fatly

transporting showered pollen
to the passing human sleeve -

altering the unseen masterwork;
sight of one unexpected bloom

might cause a man to declare his love
for a waiting woman - make children,

delete some murderous lines
in the dark chapter of a head.

Our script so linked and curlicued,
we are at dance with everything -

spoken and unspoken,
in the earthly theatre -

original arena -
restless with art;

every syllable mattering,
always work-in-progress.