Who was it that knew to strain light through raindrops so we could see a rainbow?
And who knew that time in the centre of our spinning planet would pass more slowly than on the outer crust?
Who was patient enough to construct the chemistry of rock so that when heated it would produce lava, and then wait patiently again for it to cool so it could be used to string spines of mountains across vast continents made from plates floating on even more molten rock?
How long did it take for the thought to crystallise that brought about the families of kelp and the nations of krill, the armies of insects, the kingdom of beasts?
And did the law of evaporation precede that of osmosis? Or were both a lucky happenstance birthed from mathematical musings?
Who gave such mastery to the solar winds that rust grows on our moon 384,000 kilometres from oxygen?
Who beguiled the anuran embryo to burgeon into life with face and leg and breast (and carbuncled toes, pinocchio noses and smelly arm-pits). Life that is an inscrutable mystery of chemical and physical prowess based upon a DNA helix that genetic testing is still unable to fully fathom?
Who came up with human biorhythms, luna tides and insect calendars so complex that their knowledge is impenetrable yet they look and act like siblings - same but different? Understandable at first glance, but change just one bit and the effect on other unrelated systems is so profound as to be disturbing.
Was the notion that calculus would be cripplingly unforgiving in its exactitude, yet be so obtuse as to confound the thinking of the majority of the population a deliberate thought or a passing whimsy?
And why are some boundaries set as hard and fast as the wrath of God and others soft as a besotted father’s discipline of his children? Take chemistry for instance. Once the basic rules are understood a man can do anything with chemicals, including building long chain polymers and amino acids that nothing in nature can break down, so they lie around polluting everything they touch?
Who designed tears to fall at the most embarrassing times yet considers them so valuable as to save them in bottles for some future use? And what of a kiss?
In a million years a human could not have designed the lips to be the most expressive part of our bodies, able to communicate anger with a small press, amusement with a smile, surprise with the round Oh of exclamation, disdain with ease? - not to start on the trillion other nuances the female human can project with the minutest of movement. You could ask a thousand people to write down what a kiss is, and every answer would be different, would be lacking, would be incomplete, but each one would be correct.
Who balanced simplicity with enjoyment, effort with reward, and proclaimed that beauty would confound bullies into tongue-tied submissives.
Who was it that combined frequencies with tone and allowed music and song to exist as a result, but then confused us all by giving the act of creation of that choral extravagance to the heart?
What is it about music that can lift sadness to a place of hope, strengthen resolve to a place of determination, galvanise laziness into action, fill a heart with dread, plummet a soul into the blue?
For all we know, and for all we will know, there seems to be an unfathomable quotient of mystery. One thing we know for certain is that there is more we don’t know than we do.
And should we plumb the depths of all the mysteries of the universe, we are still left with the greatest mystery of all - You. For knowing that you did all these things, and knowing that you have done more than I can ever know does not allow me to take even one step towards being able to do the same.
MDC
January 2021
