Mystery of Life's Beginning and Ending

 Mystery of Life's Beginning and Ending

" ... when population can be contained no more

and the finite resources reach the limit."

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature School on Blog

Bryophytes and fern carpet a boulder. Closeup photos

Mosses and algae cling on living trunk of Albizzia tree (Photos taken at the 

Ateneo de Manila University Diliman QC

Shelf mushrooms colonize tree stumps, living on lignin and cellulose 
and breaking them into elemental form.

When does life start? 

When volcanoes settled into ash
three billion years ago.

When a meteor got too close to earth
and blew a breath of life.

When the virus' chemical bond deceives
a host cell as foster parent.

When a giant protein molecule became a blob
in the vast ocean of soup.

When paedogenesis rules over fertilization
and results in virgin birth.

When the stem cell predestined as embryo,
is also reserved as tissue or organ.

When plants, animals and protists are disguised
as gametophytes and sporophytes.

When countless spores disseminate with few
survivors finding foothold somewhere.

When mosses and algae carpet a rock,
die and resurrect the next season.

When mycellia long laid to rest wake up
to lightning and become mushroom.

When sulfur bacteria colonize volcanic craters
on land and on the ocean floor.

When fission, budding, cutting, tillering,
defy aging and mutation.

When does life end? 

When the world comes to a fiery end
five billions years from now.

When a comet gets too close
or a huge meteor falls to earth.

When the last member of a population
bids farewell to the species.

When the last forest is razed, coral
reef leveled, rivers reclaimed.

When flu virus becomes interactive
and produces more virulent mutants.

When global warming shrinks the continents
and submerges the islands.

When the glaciers lay the mountains bare;
rivers, lakes and streams run dry.

When farms and pastures, and valleys
turn into wastelands.

When genes are engineered to befit
man's greed, but bereft the species.

When population can be contained no more
and the finite resources reach the limit.

When Malthus ghost is back with the grim
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

When intelligence makes man a robot,
and robot becomes man. ~