From Arsenic to Zirconium

CARBON, C

THIS “VITAL FORCE” OF LIFE

From CO₂ to CHOs and back to CO₂,

And so this “vital force” of life transfers from me to you.

Its PET scans pinpoint cancers,

While its “dating” undoes chancers.

Bond-friendly with its neighbors so, each day brings compounds new.

To carbon our world’s fate is bound through gas and oil and coal,

Organic to our way of life, our true synthetic soul.

From nanotubes and fullerene,

To diamonds, graphite, thin graphene,

This rhyme’s too short by far for all its virtues to extol.

 see-oh-two  see-aytch-ohs  see-oh-two

From CO₂ to CHOs and back to CO₂,

And so this “vital force” of life transfers from me to you.