The Life Force

Like the strong force and the weak force it is elemental to our universe

There are undiscovered constants which govern all its actions

Its bacterial spores amazingly adapted to interstellar travel

Able to remain quite dormant for entire epochs if conditions warrant

Possessed of the entire miracle of genetic reproduction in one tiny package

Ready to seed the process we call evolution in yet another time and place

Executing a miraculous algorithm in the ecosystem of the universe

Playing a fundamental role in the development of the cosmos

Able to remain quite well-adapted when its environment is stable

Capable of staccato bursts of punctuated equilibrium as conditions change

Favoring neither complex nor simple forms, only survival is rewarded

All its species are extinguished as surely as all its individuals must perish

Created anew if required from the rich inorganic stew on friendly planets

Once it is established it becomes virtually impossible to eradicate

Patient in the timeframe of the age of the universe

Spreading like a vast and gentle rainstorm on a grand cosmic scale

Boiled by supernovas, frozen by dying suns, yet only its pseudopods wither

Clinging to survival in some quiet spatial eddy, it blooms once again

Seeking out every niche with the effortless strength of water flowing

Taking the myriad forms which increase the chances of its survival

A basic force capable of emergently generating a will to self-understanding

The reason for its existence is the province of philosophers and theologians

There are undiscovered laws and formulas governing its circulation

Its distribution can be mapped and its extents visualized as snapshots

Easier to find than dark matter here on earth but not so out in the wide universe

Though all life forms must disappear, just like gravity, the life force will remain