The Science of Life: Part 1
Poetry
This is a result of starting my undergraduate work with two years of science and math in an engineering program at the University of Minnesota in 1959 and eventually ending up as an English major with a humanities minor. I have always had a love of science especially physics and, although I ended up in English, I have followed the sciences, especially concerning quantum mechanics. This has allowed me an entire range of metaphors and images as inspirations to view the world.
Here are three poems derived from that source.
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Words
Words,
Like lenses,
crystals,
vibrant glass,
desert sands melted and congealed.
They focus
or blur.
They expose possibilities within
or
keep our sight distracted
with kaleidoscopes of gaudy color,
divertimenti.
But,
when touched by heaven,
they burst upon the world
with beauty,
clarity,
and simple magic…
And reveal the beating heart of life.
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What’s the Point?
There it is…
Just a speck.
It does not really have depth,
Or length,
Or width.
It just sits there,
Alone.
Waiting…
Perhaps to even stand in line
Someday…
Or become a part of something grander…
Perhaps a magnificent edifice.
But for now, it is just there,
Patient…
Alone.
Maybe that’s the point?
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Dark Matter
We live in a universe of dark matter…
dark energy.
Things of great mass…
great consequence,
may be unseen…
unknowable,
except by observing…
what happens around them.
A universe full of places
where the laws of the physics-of-our-own-creation
no longer hold.
And we…
still afraid of the dark…
think evil might reside
in that darkness.
Forgetting that
the fearful limits of our thinking
do not make darkness evil…
only unknown,
or mysterious,
or magical.
What matters most
is not the light or dark of it,
but that it is simply being what it is…
doing what it has been given to do…
being true unto itself
in its own mysterious way.
Our job…
To accept the mystery,
And go about our lives.
