There is science in meter and verse. It was edited by Dava Sobel. This is the first thing. HOMOSAPIENS. We think the world belongs to us
but scientists have weighed life
on Earth, which turns out to be
mostly trees. Only one hundredth of the living swim the seven seas.
One-eighth are buried: bacteria.
Underground bacteria weigh more than a thousand times more than us.
Even worms outweigh us, three to one.
So does the lowly virus. Humans comprise a mere hundredth of a hundredth
of the living, .01%.
Yet we have paved the earth with chicken bones. Weep into your soup: under a third of birds
fly free—the rest, poultry.
Garden turned feedlot
and slaughterhouse—we, Homo sapiens,
one-third of all mammals, keep
almost two-thirds to eat, mostly cow and pig. Only four percent left
for all wild animals, elephant to shrew.
Half of Earth's creatures have vanished in the last half-century
while we've redoubled.
Plants outweigh us by a factor of 75 to one.
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There are two The other four percent.
I let the cat out— I felt the cat
hunkered in her fur
eyes bright in the dark amidst all the wild things
crouched in their night
tygers to mice the tiny remnant left
each one fighting for its life.
The proportions are not based on the number of animals. The Biomass Distribution on Earth was written by Yinon M. Bar- On, RobPhillips and Ron Milo.
The original title was "Weight" in Scientific American.
The scientificamerican0123-22 is an article.
Barbara Ungar is releasing a collection of poems. The Origin of the Milky Way is one of her publications. She is a professor at the College of St. Rose.
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