Tiny Little Creature is Colossally Tough – a Surprising Survivor #tardigrade #poetry #nature #evolution #science
A humongously enlarged museum model, image by Janine and Jim Eden
What’s the toughest animal,
A lion or a bear?
Or you and me with our dominion
Over others’ prayers?
What tolerates the cosmic rays,
Curled in a dried-out ball,
What can survive a vacuum
Or hottest heat
or coldest cold?
The microscopic tardigrade
Looks like a critter should,
With feet and head and funny face,
It’s kinda cute and good.
In half a billion years evolved
A thousand speciations
To beat the competition
And earn
our exclamations.
Who will be here
to greet the gods
As final days of Earth unfold?
It won’t be me,
it won’t be you.
The tardigrade
will fill that role.
by Kate Rauner
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2nd edition now available! Expanded!
There are articles every now and then about the tardigrade, a wee beastie worth contemplating.
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Filed under: Poetry Tagged: microscopic animal, nature, poem, poet, poetry, science inspired poetry, water is a water bear, what is a tardigrade, will life survive on Earth
