Ode to Science [part 2]

 

The great Nasa photos
from the-Cassini-Huygens mission
show how the luminous rings of Saturn float, revolve
float
in a mystery of space whose infinite
existence has no explanation----
and I remember all the nights in which I’ve stood
looking up at the Milky way
over the curved horizon of earth or sea
and from somewhere in me deeper than bones or brains
such a huge weightless question arises
as to why,
why this existence and its immensity?
If the lens of Polomar or Hubbell were my eye
would it help me see why there is life is on earth?
I don’t believe anymore
that the universe
 was ever created.
What if the Big bang theory is mistaken--- as maybe likely---
there must have been a beginning before the beginning---
and thus Existence always was whether anyone
was there to see it or not.
Once I realized the gods are dead,
or rather never lived---were imagined figments---,
false entities, less than plastic dinosaurs---
I discarded them and
saw the earth is all the life we have---
this life that is “once only” is more than enough.
I stand without religion as a tree stands
feeling the way its being flowers cherry blossoms,
my watery eyes hold mountains and mist
and jungles full of parrots in them.
What amazements of fig wasps and geckos,
Yucatan meteor craters watery with multicolored corals!
I saw Andromeda Galaxy and the Orion Nebula
through the 10 inch telescope at the
Cleveland Museum of Natural History and felt them all
the way though my legs down to my toes.
To see these things in reality and not just in photo form
Made me feel them as pasrt of my own skeletal structure,
What I was born with….
Science is being opened eyed
to the hardly noticed obviousness of things---
listening and watching to the
the sky-pond of meanings
the lakes, forest, starry ocean currents of lives,
species grown
from stone and sea and sunny black obsidian
and a firey gash of molten rock in volcanic ash.
The planet breathes red tides and hurricanes,
snow caps and mustard seasons
the migrations of millions of birds every fall.
We study plants or stars
to learn to live with ourselves
star charting our own blood,
speaking like pollen to the wind.
To really know our world
means to know that my heart
is the wind that water chimes in my mind,
my eyes come from mountains,
your lungs breathe ages
and our bones are dinosaur relations.
The more you let earth into your mind
the more the heart
undoes the lust to kill to conquer and to eat meat.
Seeing through the eyes of other beings
creates the desire to coexist
not just with those you love,
but with Lampreys, Manta Rays, huge Beetles
Deer Fly, dangerous Bears and a sea that can kill you.
I am pine needles, falling acorns, mangoes,
the flatworm in the muddy water.
I am cloud, dirt, wave crashing,
the hydras arms, reaching for more life.
How did I come to be, Oak tree?
Even when my parched old body is dying
let me remember
I was born with butterflies.
I come from where dew comes from.
Butterflies land on my face in the morning and drink dew.
I am geyser ice and a lava liana.
Let these flowers of understanding breathe sun rising
on the miracle of the human mind
trying to love and see the earth in the same vision,
all at once,
living the life of whales traveling up the coast
and Curlew’s crying in the mudflats
and minnows in the eddies of a summer stream
and how mice feelingly seek with whiskers in the dark
and how the mind of a child creates a new phrase
never used before by anybody.
What a marvelous world to be born into
how the eyes of a baby Pronghorns
trust its parents in the Nevada expanse
so many babies, I think of them all---
Rhinos, Gorillas or Horses, kittens and my own child.
Now I am old enough to often be weary
I miss my young days when I could fly
and run for hours without fatigue.!
The Rooster at dawn crows the happiness
of the living earth spinning around once again.
Saturn floats in the infinity of space
like a duck waking up on midnight waters
the Milky Way reflected in the pond.