The Rise of Cyanobacteria

by David Baresch

In that age, those ancient days,
The land was dead, barren and razed.
Oceans, alone, hosted cells,
Safe in the depths of green deep waves.
Yet…
From time-to-time those waves rolled high,
And onto the sands some cells were dashed,
And there they lay on beaches bleached,
Their lives torched, their lives breached.
But…
One day, a cell survived,
For this was a cell of another kind,
It hungrily fed on UV light,
And it gave out waste, Ozone waste
It healed the Earth from plague, from dearth.
For…
On that day, our world was blessed,
Air blossomed, a shroud formed,
And an Earthly shield rose to the heights,
It defied the smite of brutal proton strikes.
And life…
Life it aided, deserts abated,
Organics, anew, flowered and bloomed
They carpeted over those arid dunes
And this process is 'Photosynthesis'.
And hence…
That sky of rage, that sky to raze
With floods of deadly atomic haze,
It turned blue, zephyrs flew, flora perfumed,
And a blazing nuclear world cooled.
Therefore…
Trees grew and long grass too,
Plant life flowered in bright sunlight,
They sent ozone into the sky
Enabling life to flourish, to thrive.
So…
Let us praise, let us hail,
That tiny prehistoric cell,
That ozone creator,
Our saviour,
That oxygen maker,
A world to savour,
That life giver,
Our breath deliverer,
The one we call,
'Cyanobacteria!'