The Two Nutrient Pools of Life

The Two Nutrient Pools of Life...

by Tony Ryals

Ode to the two nutrient pools of life,
In which we swim and toil and strife,
A marriage of carbon and nitrogen from the gases of the air,
With phosphorous, potassium and traces from the earth's mineral layer,
Water moving between them both,
These two nutrient pools to betroth,
Through the solar energy fusion,
Of organic-inorganic co-evolution,
Combining with this water and solar energy,
To form what Schrödinger called negentropy,
Which is to say the life you see,
Carbon and nitrogen from the air and minerals from the sea and soil,
Allowed life to form both coal and oil,
Phosphates and minerals in continuous bio-cycle,
Reducing more carbon like a rider gaining more miles from a single bicycle,
When this life died and was buried by former seas and earth,
To phosphates and oil deposits it gave birth,
Now much of this biogeologic chemical feast,
Lies in North Africa and the Middle East,
Thus multinational interests are increased,
Maybe this is our mark of the beast,
A monkey in a jungle eats a leaf and breathes the oxygen of the air,
Then excretes the organic mineral wastes to the forest floor there,
What photosynthesis united with its alchemical art,
Respiration has now split apart,
Carbon and nitrogen back to the air,
Phosphates and minerals back to the earth's mineral layer,
Man he comes and cuts that tree,
To grow his com far as the eye can see,
Carbon and nitrogen remain available in the air,
But nutrients are lost from the mineral layer,
In not mimicking nature man is anti-biospheric,
But don't tell him-he don't want to hear it,
In ignoring the two nutrient pools of life,
Man is only increasing his own strife,
Maybe agriculture is the devil's bargain,
We expelled ourselves when we cut the garden,
But now we mine the elements of the earth,
By burning oil and not valuing its worth,

The phosphate of our bodies no longer comes from the soil,
But from a phosphate deposit we mine with oil.