poetry
by Gail Purvis, Edinburgh, Scotland
Freedom from debt
And who rewards the humble of our earth? C. elegans, Drosophila, Daphnia, mouse or rat, the Zebra fish, or even Xenus frog (the toad I'm told is now endangered and, this believed, relieved his one time place among the creatures come to hand) To let us quickly breed and endlessly research our curiosity into the '"Genome, and gene expression, fitness and response to chemical Contaminants and of course, environmental change."
I've seen no honours heaped on the frail millions that hop or fly or run invisible behind so many of the vaunted 'Nobel' greats. Where are the gilded statues to them, in pride of place Among our crowded cities? Or even detailed, sombre Portraiture in Galleries, for me to ponder on and praise?
Zoos sometimes house them, but they do not tell our debt to living things That die to give us functional gene sequence, expression, protein structure And proteomics too, data for drugs, for lives, for future human benefit. Are they so worthless of remembrance? Is science, so unlike the war, quite free from debt?
We who take pride and pleasure in our 'great' and 'good' and breathe At living "Names" should strive a little harder to recall those One-time living templates to that fame.
Shall we ask a computer.....?
This is a computer algorithm that generates poetry. You can give it any word in the English language and it will create some prose on it.
