Science  Write  Now

He published at fifty, 
decades and oceans after 
that youthful scramble over rocks,
with his careful store of 
	cold feathered bodies in annotated boxes,
	pressed petals and seed pods stacked between leaves.
After swaying nights in that ship’s cabin
tossed by torrential thoughts,
his scratching pen shaped on the page 
that first thought.
Firmly back on land,
mild Kent evenings of yellow light
	and family times, 
did not stop his mind
swaying like his sea legs. 
He ambled along metaphysical paths
	laid down highways of concrete thought
	reasoned their cause
changed forever our answer.


Before the hand of God was swept away 
	no one questioned His plan
	but embraced the serenity of certainty;
now contained in reason’s coils
	the small part he grasped 
	the sample he chose 
	from the vastness of everything
cannot be freed again.
He conjured a theory that still cracks tarmac as sure as summer heat, and, buried like an IED in a curve of the road, puts speeding fundamental wheels into a spin, draws into the open the ringing notes of AK47 repetition, cuts down the ranks of 
‘Think as I think or else...’

Still, his thought is with us:
	our solace.
We believe with the same fundamental fervour 
of those he defeated, in the survival 
of the fittest thought.
But this solid reason of flesh and bones 
 	(after all, genetics is assured) 
is sea mist cut by The Beagle’s bow
	feathers swept up to invisibility on a thermal
	dusty imprints of ancient leaves,
it shimmers when I ask why I 
	love sunlight on a speck, floating in this room,
	crave grass-shadows in a Spring breeze,
	seek certainty in chaotic words?