I can see that a poem I recently submited to Dverse was poorly communicated to readers, possibly placing me more firmly in la-la land than usual. This is to clarify:   I got the idea from information in Life’s Engines (2015) by Paul G. Falkowski, a book recommended by members of the science readers group on “Goodreads.”  The lion’s share of the work was done while Falkowski was on sabbatical leave at the Radcliffe  Institute for Advanced Studies  at Harvard University.

On page 39 we find: “What we do know is that is that the basic structure of the tree of life has helped us understand that all extant life on Earth is derived from a single, extinct microbial organism. But if Earth is derived from a common microbial ancestor, when did that last common ancestor arise?” The eventual answer, after much evidence, is about 2.4 billion years ago. In case you missed it, the poem which I wrote, is:

MOTHER MICROBE

My first mom was a microbe–

it is written in my book;

randomness was all it took.

A virgin birth by golly,

no horny teenage folly.

T’was a sideways injection

and without an erection.

That’s the way microbes did it,

linking up to a tidbit

as it says here in my text:

a daisy chain without sex.*

*Life’s Engines by Falkowski, 2015