WITHIN AND WITHOUT

Within us, constant battles rage
their scope, intensity to us unfathomable
as millions upon millions of cells actively
change, divide, multiply, die, are born again
yet, perhaps for our brains, never the same stay,
their numbers in staggering proportion
as our skin is replaced every seven days,
some thirty thousand genes alone producing proteins
among them hemoglobin, insulin, antibodies
and that is just the tip of the iceberg, so to say
since other genes make suicide proteins
that are programmed to kill cells which
once targeted, alive are devoured by other cells,
for every cell thus born, another must die
otherwise our mass too immense for us becomes,
one could say we daily partake of ourselves.

Without, most of us are placidly unaware
as to the nature of mortal combat that within us rage
an ongoing, never ceasing struggle of life and death;
unable to lead the charge to defend the assault on ourselves,
lacking even rudimentary skills and knowledge,
akin to the primordial biologic barbarians we are,
through pure ignorance we delude ourselves,
our concerns with mundane emotions racked,
pampering ourselves, paying homage to our outer shell
such as, how we look, if we smile, have a pretty face,
our material possessions, our way of life, how to get ahead
while all the time, a seething, sinister nether micro world
is in complete anarchy, creating havoc and mayhem
in our very own electro chemical organic world.

Herbert Holzbauer
© February 2001

Midi: "Saxdreams"
Composer: Bert Hilby