The Beginning Poem by Sidi Mahtrow

The Beginning...

A trip through the elements
searching for the beginning. 
Not the DNA encoded secrets of life
but of how life began.

Not simple life forms but further back...

I thought of a bit of salt
dissolved in water
as the water slowly evaporates,
the molecules of salt find
another and another and still another
until they crystalize
in a pure transparent form
all duplicated and exactly alike.
 
They have a memory -
dissolve them and
if you like cause them to reform
by evaporation. 

That's a form of reproduction.

Further back in the evolution of life,
not molecules
but atoms themselves,
some simple
others complex.

Each has it's deviate form,
some more stable than others. 

Leave aside the larger ones
and think of the simple of the simplest. 
Hydrogen, atomic number one. 
But it does not exist alone. 

It pairs with another to share. 
Share? Share what - electrons. 
Electrons those hovering bits of energy
or matter spinning about

Not unlike sperm
seeking the mother lode,
the nucleus (egg if you prefer)
to begin life anew.

But the basic
element of them
is not called
an element

  - it's a neutron.

No charge,
just mass
it lies in wait
to begin it all

For in the beginning
the neutron with electron
and the nuclear mass within
separated to yield an hydrogen atom
positive mass within and free spinning electron wihout...

the secret of evolution
for when hydrogen was created
it began what we call life.


sidi