Women Poetry Australia
semifinalist in Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup, August 2004
NEW CELLS OF LIFE AND DESTRUCTION
Maria believes in the Goddess. It is her democratic right.
Her faith it is The Temple of Her Hallowed Self.
Her planet is Divine. She has no parents,
no partners; never mangled, she.
No siblings. No uncle. No aunt.
Her sacred family unit
is but One. No Thou or Thee. No child.
Not even a DVD.
But she does have compassion -
Her god and her goddess
One Big Heart
And an erudite solo mind to understand, to see
the intricate complexity of all living matter: in
crab-crafted mandalas on golden beaches, and
fragile fringed crystals of frosted ice, fragmented
in the venose cracks of crusted earth; in dimples
on your wrinkled face, and mine, and on pollen
dusts around a stamen's sticky tip.
In dancing prisms of lightning bugs on dusk,
and in perfumed early evenings she sees patterns,
each uniquely coded, mosaic blueprints for our destiny.
She sees them again, on the diamond-knotted
skins of golden pineapples; in individual fleshy
segments of the earthworm with its strategic saddle,
and in the worm that also is some replicating virus,
violating us in raging optic fibres.
In the weapons of mass destruction,
spiraling, imploding, mushrooming
plumes of smoke, unfurled universal patterns,
configured, predestined for one place.
On the python's back, and in artistic
insects' scribblings on the Scribbly Bark.
Here. There. Everywhere.
New Cells.
The world is swamped by talk of cells:
Cell phones, brain cells, blood cells,
solar cells, stem cells, genetically modified cells;
embryonic cells, fuel cells, germ cells.
Al-Qaeda, T E R R O R I S T cells. Good
and evil networks. Some spiritual awakening.
Molecules of isms saturating insanity.
Today, DNA discoveries reveal in mathematical pulchritude,
the guide to the truth of it all. We understand more
clearly now the importance of RNA. They are essential rungs
in the ladder of creation, vital in determining specific genes,
enabled to attack any virus; they execute direction
and redirection in a cellular space, imperative to
the future scheme of a tailor-made perfect world
of long and healthy living, unless of course,
only selected tolerated souls can survive
and a life itself becomes no longer precious,
incredulously disrespected and ignored
by powerful vengeful persons who would
themselves believe they are
Almighty Lord, The God.
No Mickey Mouse science of mice and men is this,
for genomes of the regular rodent are ninety-nine per cent
all-human - like yours, like mine, like hers or his, inclusive
of presidents and serfs; the scientists, the killers, the healers,
the teachers; the saints and monks with their compassionate hearts; the activists
and martyrs; the innocent children to the slaughter. Mighty Mickey
is our hero, much revered today.
This tiny pest has now become a surrogate human, a
disposable man, the medical Savior of our 21st century.
Long live our free world of mice and men! Women! Yeah!
But how then can we talk of freedom?
Does anyone know true liberty?
We all have an urgent need for answers
to unanswered prayers, a want for
people-caring policies, and
practical plans
for peace.
Our world is dividing, multiplying into new organisms,
the way it is designed, methodically mapped
in colonies and nuclei - M-set astroblemes
across the globe throughout humanity,
living a shaky valence in virgin tissues. In every
swirling grain of tidal sands, we are born
and we die, under attack by activated atoms or
scavenger radicals. Millions of cells in our bodies
waste away.
And the beat goes on. New units daily manifest.
Ancient generations of stars in time and space
become our consciousness; primordial universal forces
fresh neurons formatting with every new experience,
now feelings, present thoughts. 
Many old cells disappear.
Ousted. Our opinions switch. Our values convert,
our judgments, shifting in each instant.
Rejection to Acceptance. Destruction to Renewal.
War to Peace. Life to Death. Endings and Beginnings.
E m a n c i p a t i o n.
There's many a harbinger-river of turbulent waters
to cross, into which one can't step twice, can't
exist in the same body again, nor hold identical mind.
Such is the sanctity, the miracle of life.
Every moment we die,
and every moment
our rebirth takes place.
~~~
©barbaraataylormarch2003
