On NASA’s Discovery of ‘Interstellar Chocolate’
by Danny Adams
The
universe is
a violent / wicked / stressed
neighborhood
of chaos worse than even found
in a Manhattan or L.A. rush hour:
small wonder, small miracle, then
tasty building blocks of life are found
free-floating or stowaways on your corner meteor—
nitrogen-carrying aromatic hydrocarbons,
a prime genesis of chocolate
Found everywhere
(the experts say)
all-purpose consumed
by young planets and old stars alike,
“as a class more abundant
than all polyatomic molecules combined”
but—
more important,
medicine for
violent / wicked / stressed human lives!
For in jump-starting life on Earth
our universe wisely mixed
interstellar chocolate
into our primordial soup.
Copyright © 2006, Danny Adams
Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/S. Willner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
Danny Adams is the co-author, with Philip Jose Farmer, of the short novel The City Beyond Play, forthcoming from PS Publishing. His shorter work has appeared or is forthcoming in Abyss & Apex, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Illumen, Lone Star Stories, The Mount Zion Speculative Fiction Review, Mythic Delirium, Not One Of Us, Paradox, Revolution Science Fiction, Star*Line, Strange Horizons, and Weird Tales. He and his wife Laurie live with four mean kittens deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where Danny is also a college librarian. You can read his nonfiction ramblings at madwriter.livejournal.com.