DNA is . . .

. . . a thread that we can grasp,
the thread connecting all of life.
The spiraling thread of DNA running through us
connects us to the pulse of life on Earth
and to the energy of the cosmos.

Let's follow it like Ariadne's thread
through the labyrinth, and let it take us
to where we need to be.

Our DNA with its 3 billion pairs of molecules
is a message, a long, long song.
Some of it is working code,
the code laid down that gives the blueprint
to build everything our body is and does.

But some of it is play,
the parts that make no sense to us
when we try to read them as instructions,
but spiral on in millions of molecules that,
  if we could hear them,
might sound like amazing melodies
with endless improvisation,
age after age.

It's these free improvisations,
the new patterns that unexpectedly blossom
along the running vine, that give us the clues
to trace the way back
down the path to our far-off ancestors
who live in us
though they lived a thousand generations ago.

The play of molecules
gives the ever-changing patterns
we're just now learning to see,
that allow us to recognize
the long-hidden members of our tribe,
our kin, our family.

Now we know, we have one family!
Every living being ~
by our shared DNA
we know each other.

Some kin are closer,
giving us the reassurance
that we aren't alone
in what makes us special and different
among the multitude.

May our pursuit of knowledge of our DNA
never serve to separate us
but only make us more conscious
of how its thread
connects us all.

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