Plasmid Spring

Our poetry circle group of 3 walked through town to read the poems of our 7th Annual Poem town event. It was raining hard so we only read poems that were under cover:) Here's what we were reading when I snapped this...

Plasmid Spring

These cheerful chloroplasts 
brightening our springs
with deepening green, 
once roamed free
in ancient waters
under young Earth’s
space-black sky. 

These biochemical dabblers
mixed volcano’s plume
with sun and water,
breathing out 
the corroding and protective gas
now blanketing us with blue.

World conquerors,
but descendant prisoners too,
they still remember
their liberty
in the airless oceans
and like their ancestors
rise and fall each day 
in the miniature sea
in every cell of every leaf,
still balancing the killing
and the life-giving powers
of the unshielded sun,
our mutual and parent star.

Joan Waltermire