Poems about Science 4: Birth and Evolution
POEMS ABOUT SCIENCE 4: BIRTH/EVOLUTION
Simultaneous Flight
by Michael R. Burch
*The number of possible connections [brain] cells can make exceeds the number of particles in the universe. — Gerald Edelman, 1972 Nobel Prize winner for physiology and medicine*
Mere accident of history—
how did a reptile learn to fly,
learn dazzling aerial mastery,
grow beaked and feathered, hollow-boned,
improve its sight, and learn to sing,
though purposeless as any *thing*?
And you—bright accidental bird!—
do you, perhaps, find it absurd
ten trillion accidents might teach
man’s hand to write, or yours to reach
beyond yourself to grasp such *song*?
Sing ruthlessly! I’ll sing along,
suspecting you must know full well
you didn’t shed a ponderous tail
to practice leaping from high tors
of strange-heaped reptiles, corpse on corpse,
until some nervous flutter-twitch
brought glorious flight from glitch on glitch.
No, you were made to fly and sing,
man’s brain—to ponder *Everything*.
But ponder this: What f-cked-up “god”
would murder Adam’s animated clod?
Singularity
by Michael R. Burch
Are scientists confounded like the ostrich?
Heads buried in the sand, they shout, *Preposterous!*
This universe, so magical, they say,
proves there’s no God. But let’s look anyway ...
He said, *Let there be Light*, and there was light.
Stumped scientists have scratched their heads all night
and solemnly proclaimed an awesome Bang,
from which de Light immediately sprang ...
which sounds like God to me!, Who, with one word
made Light, and proved man’s theories, not absurd,
but logical, if only they’d agree
in one tremendous Singularity!
(However, there’s a problem with my plea:
*it turns out that His world is made of pee*.)
No Proof
by Michael R. Burch
They only know to sing—not understand,
though quizzical, heads cocked, they need no proof
that God’s above. They hop across my roof
with prescient eyes, to fall into His hand...
as sure of Grace as if it were mere air.
He gave them wings to fly; what do they care
of cumbrous knowledge, pale Leviathan?
Huge-brained Behemoth, sagging-bellied one!
You too might fly, might test this addling breeze
as gravity, mere ballast, tethers naught
but merely centers. Chained to heavy Thought,
you cannot slip earth’s bonds to rise at ease.
And yet you too can sing, if only thus:
Flash, flash bright quills; rise, rise on nothingness!
Keywords: evolution, bird, fly, flying, flight, light, bang
#AI #RAD #RADICAL #MRBIA #MRBRAD #MRBRADICAL #MRBSCIENCE
Copyright ©
Michael Burch
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