Mary Klein

Organelles, cells, organs, organisms, families, cultures, planets – these bodies nest within each other in irregular concentricity, one within the next, each encased by its own semi-permeable boundary. In the jigsaw puzzle of incarnation, all the pieces slip and slide, expand and contract, ignite and extinguish, push, pull, infiltrate, and emerge. There, but for the grace of God, go I.

Activists chant, “Water is life.” Introductory chemistry teachers instruct, “Water is the universal solvent.” Because of water’s exceptional ability to dismember all sorts of materials – carbon-based molecules, metals, salts – as well as its ability to absorb all sorts of gases – paleontologists tend to assume that life on Earth began in a body of water.