atoms with consciousness

There are the rushing waves...

mountains of molecules,

each stupidly minding its own business...

trillions apart

...yet forming white surf in unison.

Ages on ages...

before any eyes could see...

year after year...

thunderously pounding the shore as now.

For whom, for what?

...on a dead planet

with no life to entertain.

Never at rest...

tortured by energy...

wasted prodigiously by the sun...

poured into space.

A mite makes the sea roar.

Deep in the sea,

all molecules repeat

the patterns of another

till complex new ones are formed.

They make others like themselves...

and a new dance starts.

Growing in size and complexity...

living things,

masses of atoms,

DNA, protein...

dancing a pattern ever more intricate.

Out of the cradle

onto dry land...

here it is standing...

atoms with consciousness

...matter with curiosity.

Stands at the sea...

wonders at wondering... I...

a universe of atoms...

an atom in the universe.

"The Value of Science," address to the National Academy of Sciences (Autumn 1955) by Richard Feynman