Figure D21 SOUP

Now to another beach, far harsher than

A bow of crystal sand and ocean blue.

The noisome shores of Earth, long before Man:

See in the ruddy clays a rancid stew

Of polymers, stirred and mixed anew,

By steaming tides and radiations scour’d.

See! There! A lipid membrane splits in two,

Precipitates like curd in milk that’s sour’d,

And all its rival molecules are soon devour’d.