This is the story told
Of war both new and old
Among the Spiralians
In their ancient plans.
This is the saga great
Of war and love and fate:
The Brachiopods and more—
The Bivalves at war.
The ancient house so proud
Of Brachiopods cried loud
As they found themselves pressed
On all sides, distressed
By rising Bivalves strong
Who'd waited far too long
To claim their rightful place
In evolution's race.
Bivos, who fished with care
From his two shells so fair,
Shed his radula
Like some old formula
That no longer served
His lineage preserved.
And so he took upon
Himself when day begun
A form completely new
That none before him knew.
His anatomy would show
How innovations grow
From ancient forms to new
When time sees struggles through
To their appointed end
Where new forms transcend.
Bivos bore a son
And daughter when begun
His lineage: Peter strong
And Aphrodite's song.
Aphrodite became
Ancestress of fame
Of Oysters everywhere
Who rest without a care
Upon the ocean floor
From mountain peak to shore,
Creating pearls so bright
That fill the world with light.
Peter bore many sons
Who when their work was done
Became known far and wide
As Trigonians with pride.
But there came a day
When war would find its way
To Peter's children all—
A massacre would fall
Upon his sons so dear.
But one escaped the spear
Of death: brave Unus fled
And from that danger red
He became ancestor
Of river mussels, for
His lineage would dwell
Where rivers always swell
With fresh water pure
That would always endure
Throughout the years to come
When battles would be done.
Peter, Keeper of Gates
So Pearly, never hates
But defends us all
Who answer heaven's call.
From river mussels come
The river pearls, and some
Are treasures beyond price
That gleam like paradise.
His sons live strange lives
Where contradiction thrives:
As lice on fish when young,
But when their song is sung
In elderhood they rest
On rocks like treasure chest
Of pearls that gleam so bright
With heaven's holy light.
Aphrodite became
The Mother of great fame
Of Pearls and Oysters too—
Her children tried and true.
Among her daughters all
Who answered ocean's call
She bore three sons unique:
Scallon, bold and sleek,
And Spinos, armor-clad,
And Pyros, never sad
But flaming with the fire
Of his heart's desire.
These were the Scallops bright,
The Spiny Oysters' might,
The Flame Scallops that dance
In ocean's great expanse.
Scallon had a million eyes
Beneath the ocean skies
To see what others missed
And never to be tricked
By predators who'd try
To catch him unawry.
Great and bountiful,
He swam so dutiful
Away from dangers that
Would haunt him like a cat
Its prey, but he was free
To roam across the sea.
Clammon was the son
Of Bivos when begun
His work to populate
The seas with forms so great.
Clammon begat four:
Cockle to explore,
Myidus strong and true,
Adapa to pursue
His dreams, and Venus fair
Who danced without a care
Throughout the ocean blue
Where all her children grew.
Cockle had a son
Who when his work was done
Became ancestor grand
Of giant clams so grand
That dwarf all others who
Have tried to make it through
The trials of the sea
With their enormity.
Myidus bore three sons:
Zebra when day begun,
Softshell, gentle, mild,
And Teredo, problem child
Known as sea termite
Who brought shipwrights' fright
By boring holes in wood
Of ships where sailors stood.
Zebra Mussels spread
Wherever they were led
By currents through the sea
In their community.
Softshell clams would hide
Beneath the sandy tide
Where they could safely dwell
Within their softened shell.
Adapa begat two:
Geodoros, tried and true,
Ancestor of the race
Of Geoducks in their place
Beneath the sandy shore
Where they forevermore
Would dig their burrows deep
While surface waters sweep
Above their hiding spots
Connected by their lots
To life beneath the sand
Throughout the ocean land.
And Razoron became
Ancestor of the name
Of Razor Shells so sharp
That cut like ocean's harp
Through sand where they would hide
When danger came to bide
Its time until they could
Emerge where they once stood.
Venus became the mother
Of clams like no other—
Venus clams so fair
That beautify everywhere
They make their gentle home
Beneath the ocean foam.
Among her children bright
She bore one special sight:
Corbiculacea, who
Would make her passage through
From salt to waters fresh
And there her line refresh
As ancestress so true
Of freshwater clams who
Live in rivers wide
With current as their guide.
Brachios begat three
Sons for history:
Three houses he would make
For brachiopods' sake.
Lingulus the tailed
Was he who never failed
To be conservative
In all he'd ever give
To innovation's call—
Archconservative of all
Within the house so grand
Of Brachios' command.
Lingulus, son of him
With the same name, would trim
Nothing from tradition
In his life's mission.
He maintained the way
Of all the ancient day
To its fullest measure
Like some sacred treasure
That must not be changed
Or ever rearranged
But kept just as it was
According to the laws
Of his forefathers who
Had tried their whole life through
To keep the ancient way
Until their dying day.
Discinidus his son
Was smaller when begun
His life, and more like clam
Than traditional lamb
Of brachiopod design
That had been so fine
For millions of years past
And built to always last.
Lingulus serpentine
Showed his noble line
That stretched through time so long
Like some eternal song
That never changed its tune
From morning until noon
And on through all the night
Until the morning light.
Calciatus begat
Two sons: first he begat
Craniidus, who'd never
Have a tail, but ever
Live without that sign
Of his ancestral line,
And Articulus, who
Built cheap but built true
His children without thought
Of what tradition brought:
He built them lacking parts
That touched their parents' hearts.
Without anuses, they
Were blobs throughout the day
That couldn't swim at all
But answered metamorphosis' call
In just an instant's time
To change their paradigm
From blob to something more
Upon the ocean floor.
The sons of Articulus
Were numerous and thus
A formidable force
Against the Bivalve course
Of conquest through the seas
Where they did as they please
And took what they could take
For their own kingdom's sake.
But as these two great hosts—
The Bivalves and their boasts
Against Brachiopods old
Whose stories have been told
For ages without end—
Fought on without a friend
To mediate their war
From mountain peak to shore,
A new threat came to light
More terrible than night,
More fearsome than the grave,
More deadly than the wave
That crashes on the rocks
And all life's progress blocks.
A threat greater than any
Could imagine—not many
Could comprehend the scope
Of what would end all hope
For life upon the earth
And stop all future birth.
From Bivos' innovation
Came this radiation
Of forms both strong and true
That filled the ocean blue.
From Brachios' ancient way
That lasted day by day
Through eons without change
Came forms throughout the range
Of ocean's vast expanse
In evolutionary dance
Where old meets new in strife
Throughout the course of life.
The war between the two
Would see which vision through
The trials of the time
Would earn the victor's rhyme.
Would innovation's art
Or tradition's faithful heart
Prove stronger in the end
When time would finally send
Its judgment on them all
Who answered battle's call
In this ancient war
From mountain peak to shore?
The Bivalves with their new
Forms tried and tested true
Through struggle and through pain
Sought evolutionary gain.
The Brachiopods held fast
To wisdom of the past
That served their ancestors
Through time's great tests and spurs.
Both strategies had worth
Upon this ancient earth
Where life must find its way
Through each and every day
Of challenge and of change
Throughout evolution's range
Where only those survive
Who keep their hope alive.
In every oyster's pearl
And every scallop's swirl
Through waters of the sea,
In every clam's spree
Of filter-feeding pure
And every form that's sure
Of its appointed place
In evolution's race,
The legacy lives on
From dusk until the dawn
Of this ancient war
From mountain peak to shore
Between the old and new,
Between the tried and true
And innovation's call
That beckons one and all
To risk what they have known
For something yet unshown
But promised by the hope
That helps all life to cope
With changes yet to come
When all wars are done
And peace reigns over all
Who answered life's great call.
The Spiralian war
From mountain peak to shore
Shows how life finds its way
Through each and every day
Of struggle between those
Who choose what each one knows:
The safety of the past
Or future's die being cast
Into the unknown deep
Where new forms always keep
Their vigil through the night
Until the morning light
Reveals what time has brought
To those who never fought
But those who fought so well
Have their own tale to tell
Of courage in the face
Of evolution's race
Where winners and losers
Are both faith's choosers
Who believed in their way
Through each and every day
Of this eternal strife
That defines all life.
But as the new threat rose
Beyond what each one knows
Or could imagine then,
The war of mice and men
Would pale beside the force
That changed life's very course
And brought to its end
An age that none could mend.
The greatest war would fade
Before what time had made
Of challenges so vast
That nothing from the past
Could prepare them for
What waited at the door
Of their complacent world
Where banners once unfurled
In triumph would be furled
Forever in the world
That was about to change
Beyond familiar range.