On The Front Porch Swing

On The Front Porch Swing

Hello humans, I'm a bacteria

on your front poach swing.

I was born long ago

thousands of miles west of here

high upon the leaves

of a tall palm tree

on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.

There, I lived in many different colonies

of bacteria on tiny specks of dust

until the dirt and my colony

were swept up into the clouds

by a windstorm passing

over the Pacific ocean.

I was separated from my colony

and lived with my daughter cells

for many months in water droplets

far up in the white and gray clouds.

Later, I was dropped in a water droplet

as part of a August rainstorm

onto your porch where I bounced

in high speed splashing water onto your swing.

My life cycle is special and because of the way

I divide into two daughter cells, I'm essentially

immortal when my lifespan

is considered by human standards.

I speak to my cousin bacteria

by use of chemicals,

and you can consider me multilingual

because I can speak to many species

of bacteria besides just my own.

I can also transfer parts of my DNA

to other bacteria without reproducing

and viruses can transfer DNA to me as well.

My kind has lived on Earth for billions of years.

My personal lineage dates to long before

humans walked the Earth.

My kind is among the most common

forms of life on the planet.

For every human alive

there live billions upon billions of bacteria.

In myself and my kind, Mother Earth finds

continuity of life and diversity of DNA

even through the mass extinctions that

periodically plague larger forms of life.

Cousins of mine inhabit Mother Earth

high up into the sky

and deep into the ground.

We live in almost every other form

of plant and animal on the planet

all of whom could not live long

without the help of my kind.

I'll live many more years

upon your front porch swing

in a colony with my daughters

unknown and unseen

by your cumbersome human gaze

and fleeting human attention.

I've seen many forms of life come and go.

I've talked to scores of different species

Oh! The stories I could tell,

and the wisdom of Earths long ages

I could give you if only humans

had the ears and the hearts

to hear my secret melodies.

Listen now and I'll sing to you

songs of ten-thousand million lives,

of friendship and hardship,

of love and life and death,

of great alliances and deep mystery,

of seeking souls and of consummation,

spanning the long, long eons,

and carried out on vast stages.

Dewey Dirks