POETS UNITED - ORGANIC

“Why, for example, should a group of simple, stable compounds of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen struggle for billions of years to organise themselves into a professor of chemistry? What’s the motive?” - Robert M. Pirsig

The theme for this week’s Poets United midweek motif is “Organic”. I have chosen the original chemical meaning of the term:
Organic: Chemistry - Relating to or denoting compounds containing carbon (other than simple binary compounds and salts) and chiefly or ultimately of biological origin [compare with inorganic].

Organic

Carbon is the backbone

Onto which latches ample hydrogen,

With oxygen here and there,

Scant nitrogen, sulphur, phosphorus.

Organic – the chemistry of life,

Its complex macromolecules

Aggregating with endless variety,

Forming viscid globules, chains, nets…

Organic is so weak, so vulnerable,

Compared to say, silica:

Quartz crystal tough, transparent, sharp

And so simply inorganic.

And as the atoms whirl in space

And collide and exchange energies

Forming bonds, cohering, sharing electrons,

And reach more stable states,

How does the fragile organic

Form such perilous unions

And dangerous aggregations

As the murderous human?

   More toxic than arsenic,

   More harmful than uranium,

   More caustic than hydrofluoric acid,

   More damaging than inorganic mercury?