Stave I
It blisters, it blazes, it festers bright,
An orb of gold, a ball of light,
Here, the fury of a nuclear star,
Here, a world of atomic power.
As…
Eruptions spray in fountains arrayed,
They billow, they twist,
They broil, they pierce,
Gravity's breached,
Protons break free,
It's a rampant seethe,
A razing streak,
A UV sea,
A blistering plight,
To sear, to rip, and tear all life!
For…
Stave II
It's a blade to cleave, dearth to seed,
To waste all lands, to worlds of sand,
To deserts of flood, sucking out blood,
A tempest to torch,
A torrent of scorch,
A nuclear blight, a blizzard to smite,
Inferno's strike, streaming the night,
A torrid dart,
A magnetic path,
To roast, to fuse, to parch to stark.
As…
Stave III
It's magma's surge, it's magma's purge,
The Earth, its mark, brutal, harsh,
A swarming force, a fiery course,
A spouting, spurting, mortal curse.
For…
Towards the Earth, in quiet, in stealth,
Starlight raids in multiple waves,
Fusion cascades,
A mace, ablaze,
Velocity's pace,
Cruising through space,
A fatal, surging, smelting, fate.
And…
Stave IV
Volts approach, death bays,
A mass of wrath, it hurtles forth,
A silent roar, to whip, to raw,
A noose, a wreathe,
For breath to cease,
A storm of strife, starlight's knife,
Its aim, to slash, to raze with rife,
To rifle all, all of life.
And…
The lands of Earth, plagued with sparse,
Deserts vast, flames a' cast,
The arid, strewn, a scorched tomb,
Rolling dunes, a barren gloom,
A smothering swathe of golden, ranging, doom.
For…
Stave V
Solar plumes, they soar, they boom,
Intent to wound, intent to ruin,
A poisoned hive, swarming the sky,
A toxic strife,
Roasting by day, grilling by night.
As…
Electrics swell, a flaming knell,
A rampant chime to end Earth-time,
Smiting the grass, firing grain,
That of the green, fertile, Earthly terrain.
For…
Stave VI
Nuclear rays, they flood the plains,
Decay swathes, the world wanes,
The sparse ingrained, a starlit grave,
An acidic bane of acid's rain,
To stoke, to choke, to smoulder, to drain.
But…
Stave VII
Daylight fades, twilight shades,
Protons strike, aurora lights,
And towards the poles,
Radiation rolls,
The North, the South,
The magnetic mouths,
Towards their source,
They draw that scorch
Diverting course,
That of a scalding, ruthless, tidal force.
Hence…
Stave VIII
Magnetics steer, atomics veer,
And charges of spark traverse the arc,
That arc to balk,
That arc to halt,
That arc to thwart deserts of vast, wrought.
For…
Stave IX
Night-light flares, a Turner glare,
And crowds stare, a cryptic sight,
An aurora bright,
A blur of light,
It's Solar's lance,
In swirl, in dance,
A kaleidoscopic, mesmeric, trance.
And…
Stave X
That invisible field, the Earth's shield,
It palms the wield of onslaught rife,
Deflecting strikes,
Starlight's spikes
It splits, divides,
Avast 'tis cast,
And nuclear hail spirals away,
And the Earth lays safe for another day.
Morning…
Stave XI
Come the dawn and the world awakes,
Unaware, of that raid,
Unaware, of that scathe,
Unaware, of being saved,
Saved from waves, nuclear swathes,
Saved from raze, Solar's blaze,
Saved from rail, electric hail,
And saved from the bay,
That of blistering, caustic, corroding, rays.
For…
Stave XII
That cowl of heights,
That shield of might,
Defying smite,
That fiery blight,
And a sky alight,
Flaring bright,
Defending against that ultra-violent, violet light.
So, now…
Stave XIII
Let us learn from that past,
That vapid age, that arid vast,
The acres parched, a mass of sparse,
Landscapes charred,
The drought, the dark,
A world once ripped, barren, stripped,
Terrain in wane,
An atomic stain,
A world stark, a world scarred,
By rampant power,
That of a brutal, nuclear, growling, glower.
So…
Stave XIV
How was this planet saved?
Saved from the morgue,
Saved from the grave.
How did that halo form and grow,
Defying the glow of atomic strobes,
How did it shroud around the globe,
Stunting gore,
Blunting hoards,
Those the foaming, roaming, nuclear rogues?
Well…
Stave XV
Eons ago, out at sea,
Upon the waves, a cell once rode.
Towards the shores,
There it was thrown,
And there it fell, upon the raw,
There, where protons swarm,
There, where cinders pall,
There, where deserts form,
There, a rampant squall of ruthless maul.
But…
Stave XVI
Cyanobacteria,
The cell is named,
And there it lay, on a vacuous plain.
But unlike those cells that came before,
Smelting upon those arid shores,
It didn't wither, it didn't fry,
It greeted the heat that volcanoes wreak,
Caldera's beast,
Magma's fleet,
Flaming streaks,
Mountainous eruptions,
Solar fountains,
Cyanobacteria's starlight consumption.
For…
Stave XVII
Cyanobacteria,
It tasted that fire,
Sunlight's rays, those most dire,
Nuclear torrents, hails of pyre,
And, upon that rile, there it dined,
There it fed upon waves of dread,
And waste, came forth,
Ozone waste,
And this, now, a named process,
That of 'Photosynthesis'.
So…
Stave XVIII
From that day, the world was blessed,
Blessed with air, blessed with breath,
For the ozone climbed,
To mountainous heights,
Layering the sky,
Stretching the miles,
Defying pyre, volcanic ire,
That golden ring,
That scathing, knifing, ball of fire.
And…
Stave XIX
The planet Earth,
A world once fried,
Now it lives,
Fortified,
From burning sands to fertile lands,
And trees arose, flowers glowed,
The emerald gleamed, acres of green,
And come the dawn, starlight's yawn,
A dazzling strike shines on life,
And fields of dew, a-glitter like ice,
And rolling seas and rivers and streams,
They dance, they gleam, a silver sheen,
It's sunlight's ream, beaming dreams,
It's daylight's break, and the world awakes,
It's a shimmering, crystal, diamond fete.
For…
Stave XX
It's ozone's rise, to aid all life,
An aerial veil, defying prey,
And proton's waves,
They weaken, they fade,
As plant-life feeds on nuclear rays,
And pollen sails,
The air prevails,
Life thrives, life survives,
Thanks to that shield,
Thwarting that hilt,
That mass of kill,
That lethal, electric, acidic wield.
To conclude…
Stave XXI
The ozone's heights enable life,
Life to thrive, life to survive,
That aerial veil,
That Earthly shield,
Defying the wrath that protons deal.
For, cyanobacteria,
Life's creator,
A garden maker, a gift to nature,
And the air, fresh,
The ether blessed,
A world to savour,
Thanks to our saviour,
Cyanobacteria,
And its simple process,
That of…
Photo-syn-the-sis!
