Shedding the Braided Chains

Is it wrong to say That these eyes Suck in the light of day? Do I err to start a trend That holds these ears  Are open at the other end? That these hands  Love to touch, indeed touch to love, And of that touching, never love enough. All the world spills in these sensual pits Enjoyed,  But unresolved by human wits. Granted these simple truths, in fact our curse, I declare within this skull Exists the universe! This surly tongue dropping words into your ears, These grasping hands, These eyes shedding sympathetic tears, Declare that even in the darkness of the fading day, We lean our heads together, Remaining eternities away.

The Monument  We didn't know what to think of it at first; there were so many more important considerations to deal with after the bombs had stopped. Our primary concerns, of course, were the external condition of the shelter and its ability to resist the fallout, as well as the reliability of the decontamination units for air and water. How much more meaningful now is the wry smile of the technician who installed the shelter when I stupidly asked him about the warranties. Almost smirking, he said, "Sure, if you have any problems, just give us a call and we'll send the first available person!" I still imagine my message melted and mutely captured in the copper pools that were once the telephone lines. Then there was the food supply. Were the infinitesimal particles of radioactive dust excluded by the lead lining of the cans? Was the aluminum plating on the inside of the cans preventing leaching of the lead into the food? These speculations were only the latest iterati...

 The following is a poem that was inspired by the book, Galileo's Daughter which detailed the correspondence of this great astronomer, Galileo, with his devoted and loving daughter, Sister Marie Celeste, a nun living in a convent outside of Florence. Her order followed the practices of St. Francis of Assisi. Galileo's letters to his daughter have been lost to history, probably burned by the convent's Mother Superior, because of Galileo's conviction as a heretic for proposing that the Earth revolved around the Sun. The fear of investigation by the Holy Inquisition has robbed us of Galileo's letters. But in Sister Maria Celeste's correspondence with her father, we get a half of the view into the love and devotion this father and daughter held for one one another. Since Galileo shared many of his ideas and theories with his daughter, I wondered what Galileo would have said at his daughter's postulancy (when she took her vows, comparable to a marriage to Jesus)...

"Moses then went up Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, looked over the promised land of Israel spread out before him, and died, at the age of one hundred and twenty. More humble than any other man (Num. 12:3), "there hath not arisen a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom YHWH knew face to face" (Deuteronomy 34:10). The New Testament states that after Moses' death, Michael the Archangel and the Devil disputed over his body (Epistle of Jude 1:9)." - Moses  in Wikipedia Moses gazed out from Mount Nebo upon the Promised Land and cried. "I will never know its air, perfumed with wild flowers. I will not drink from its springs gushing from beneath the thick roots of its brush. I will not plow its earth, growing figs full of purple flesh to be swallowed in one bite. I will never taste its milk or the oil of its crushed olives. O God, is it for suckling at the teat of a pagan woman? Or growing up in a sumptuous realm far from the quarters of my brothers and s...

As soon as I woke up today, I checked my email. I was disappointed to find out that I still haven't received my invitation to join the Mars colonization mission. Have you? Sigh! So I ordered 20 solar-powered, self-replicating carbon dioxide scrubbers from a local tree nursery. I expect to install them in the spring, in a field cleared by a forest fire 25 years ago. I loaded the hybrid with my recycling to drop off later. I then planned my morning project, to shovel the snow on the front walk. Over my bowl of granola, I estimated that there was 1 inch of snow on the sidewalk, measuring 3 feet by 30 feet (36 inches by 360 inches). Please check my math on this, since none of the engineers who are planning the Mars mission will return my calls! I calculated 12,960 cubic inches of snow that needed to be removed. Since 1 inch of snow is approximately 0.1 inch of rain, I estimated that I needed to remove 1,296 cubic inches of water. One gallon of water weighs 8 lbs. One gallon is 231 cu...

Retiring may not suit me . . . My calendar is clear. My cell phone is dead (a hot tub drowning victim). I am not lonely, but I am longing . . . Not sure for what. With relief, I watch the story of my profession unfold without my efforts, The war against depression or anxiety or other states of madness, wages on. A gene here, a protein there or Some irresistible event or an immutable psychosocial state Explaining why people suffer. Nothing one could prevent or reverse. Nothing to do here based upon the evidence . . . This is the state of our scientific pursuits. I am relieved of its burden, But I wonder why something so hollow could have been so heavy. Helpless . . . Is this the lesson of our science? Is this the focal point of our understanding of human complexity? We still may be defeated on an astronomical stage by some magnificent, glorious act of physics. But on the biological, ecological and evolutionary stage, it is more likely that Gluttony, greed and lust...