Anagh Shukla_Carbonic Migration_CC_Final

Carbonic Migration Five billion BCE. The setting – Outer Space. A meteor hurtled through the cosmos Carrying a cliftonite-trace. A trace of graphite – meteoric, On a journey – prehistoric. An ancient mineral – carbonic, On a migration – metaphoric. Pre-dating even the Solar System, A carbonic form so immensely old. The perfect starting-point for me To show you a story as-yet untold. The meteor plummeted ever-closer To a primitive, molten ‘pre-Earth’. It entered the miasmic atmosphere As Earth prepared for Carbon’s birth. Crashing into an ocean of magma, The meteorite burst into smithereens. That molecule of Carbon survived the fall, And was eternally lodged in Earth’s ravines. Fast-forward a billion years or so: The planet cooled and developed a crust. In an ever-changing land around it That molecule of Carbon remained robust. Lying in wait for a million millennia, The carbonic migration would seem impeded. But fear not: What goes must come around. The Carbon Cycle can’t be superseded. And thus, it was but a century ago, That molecule of Carbon from its slumber awoke To the metallic grinding of machinery; It entered a landscape enshrouded by smoke. An open-pit mine in India, remote Was destined as the site for this excavation. From deep underground was graphite mined, To now be used in worldly application.