the natural
Biology: Course Review
by Marilyn McEntyre
If you forget what axons do,
or how a virus invades a cell,
remember this—
that light becomes food.
That the seasons rhyme,
a different word each time
turning soil into living song.
That all things work together.
Even death. Even decay.
That this is the way
of the world we got: what is given
grows by grace and care
and knows what it needs.
That life is strong, and precarious,
full of devices and desires.
That what we hold in common
may not be owned. Control
is costly. Close attention
is the reverence due
whatever lives and moves,
mutant and quick and clever.
That our neighbors—
the plankton, the white pine,
the busy nematodes—
serve us best
in reciprocal gratitude:
what they receive, they give.
The way the heart accepts
what the vein delivers and sends it on,
again. Again.
life: acoustic & amplified 