Travellers to a New World
Simon Spichak, APC Microbiome Ireland
We’ve waited for everything to align,
Checking for every signal and sign,
Eagerly waiting for month nine – the appropriate time,
To explore and colonize lands both sterile and divine,
We sensed the nervous excitement,
The occasional kicks and joy,
Shaking and rumbling growing inside our earthen mother,
Giving rise to strange cravings – pickles and peanut butter,
We rebuilt our community – made sure we restructured and prepared,
Optimized our mother’s metabolism, easing this whole affair
One day we heard the beeping from a deep unseen space,
The rattling and clattering in a frantic haze,
Waves of thundering and rumbling,
Earthquakes from within,
Departure is near
We the Bifidobacteria, shaped like the letter Y,
Intelligent, microbial machines
with a sleek, friendly design,
Built to be nourished by our mother for an eon of time,
We can break down her milk fuel with tools called enzymes,
We prepare to attach to the new sterile, barren surface
We latch on as it as escapes mother’s orbit
We build a home inside of the gastrointestinal folds,
Of this newly escaped asteroid,
Prepare to nourish and defend,
To terraform this barren land
with diverse flora and fauna
