Infinite Loops of Mutual Obligations Tether Together

Interchain hydrogen bonds
Gain strength and stability
From numbering in millions,

Although individual
Hydrogen bonds are quite weak.
Hence the deep double nature

Of DNA, both stable
And separable, subject
To copying and decay.

Humanity might not be
A superorganism
So much as a latter-day

Echoing of DNA
With gift-giving exchanges
And favors taking the place

Of hydrogen bonds in chains.
Cohesion builds from exchange,
Giving and accepting

Gifts plus time. Kindness to one
Is honored by acceptance
Of the gift and then later

Kindness in return. Again.
And again. The difference
With human bonds, however,

Is that their strength is greatest
When at their most intimate,
Their longest chains the weakest.

Language has tools to change this,
Has metaphors of kinship
Suggesting intimacy

And pairwise relationships
Between individuals
And strangers, armies, the state.

But language isn’t potlatch
Yet, and metaphors aren’t yet
Gifts themselves. Still, time may tell.