The Wheel in Nature

Saint Paul, 28 Septemberl 2006

The problem of supplying a freely rotating organ with

blood vessels, not to mention nerves, that don't tie

themselves in knots is too vivid to need spelling out.

~ Richard Dawkins

Subgroups of specialized ants

tend and milk their aphid cattle

Yet pumps, clocks and calendars

arrive unheralded in nature's firmware

An inquiring culture might excavate

butchered animal bones and quarry

primitive stone tools. They also might ask

Why don't animals have wheels?

Humanity could adopt a true axle or

Grow a rotating hub by will, but would we

pump plasma and dispatch directives

to some apocalyptic appendage?