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The Tardigrade
If ever a creature deserved to be
laughed off the earth's stage,
if ever a creature looked poorly designed
to withstand the rigors of life,
it is the tardigrade.
It looks like a child's first attempt
at making a figure from ropes of clay,
a grotesquely fat grub
with shapeless knobs for legs
and a round hole for a mouth.
It lumbers, if at all, slower than a tortoise
with no destination in mind
unless it is the end of the world,
when, a good ten billion years from now,
the earth burning to a cinder,
it will be the last living thing to go extinct.
The tardigrade proves almost impossible to kill.
It simply cannot think apocolyptically,
taking life, as it lives, so literally.
It thrives in the extreme boredom of a vacuum,
it basks in the fires of hell,
and can go without thinking for the longest spell.
The tardigrade is so poorly designed
it doesn't have the wherewithal to die.
It is condemned to live
for what could as well be an eternity,
while we, with our vaunted brain,
tinker with immortality
for all intents and purposes in vain.
read by Tim Kahl; audio background by Tim Kahl |
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