Some Scribblings on Science

Are we shaped? Are we formed? Are we
Informed? By what? Experience: experior,
To (trials) try.

Knowledge has something to do with it
Too. What? Knowledge of trials.
Trials? Not in their own right,

But the writ, culture as a kind of writing,
Laws. Laws? There are universal,
Theirs are universals: foedera, agreements,

Pacts: gravity, for instance (across all instances)
And death. That the wind fills a final sail,
Or a cup with water,

And streets with cars. But each law
Is particular, and in consistence with itself –
Rules were meant to be broken,

A hand can break the page. Change
Is the best consideration – take the stars:
The world was a harmony, God

Fixed in the aether, mystic reverberations
Of crystal; fall, force where all the centers
Meet: in the earth, and questions

Like elliptical evasions: the whole universe
Was dancing around an answer. A glum answer:
Then they came with their tubes,

Their protractors and contractors,
Pressures and their chambers,
Looking for a measure with every measure

Lost. The arc of a risen and falling life
Came into signs and co-signs of their verity,
Truth was to be the foundation

For stable nations, a paradise of 'cumbers,
Light, and abundant wild rice. It was not new:
It was not old. It was not a gyre

Waiting to turn upon itself – if anything
A tenor, a breath, a bird
Hovering in the air, protracting the up

By fighting down in seeming rest.