“a love song for the scientists”

They say, “cold, hard facts,” 

as if it were an insult. 

I say, the universe pings

like a crystal glass

when you strike it.

An abstract is the toe of a point shoe,

balancing a toned body of discipline, 

reason, vulnerability, vision, risk.

Limitations are a time signature,

a humble confession of

boundaries drawn in honest places.

A hypothesis is Shostakovich 

staring into chaos of the motherland,

and pulling a brazen thread

of hope through a black canvas.

Your long laboratory hours 

make a pilgrimage.

I believe I worship

the Maker of the made.

I revere what these five senses give,

also allowing impressions

less easily quantified.

Still, I sit in this darkened theater of time,

holding my breath before your art.

Your characters are precise.

They move  from act to act, 

from scene to scene

with nuance and intentionality,

and I am moved

by what your hands have made. 

Onward, then. Onward.

Dig, confess, try,

fail, revive, discover.

Fight, give, heal, spelunk,

pioneer, reach your soft hands to feel

the cold, hard, dark side

of the unknown made.

And come those long, late, neck-sore nights,

bent over a desk in some quiet, lonely lab,

I hope you feel the kiss of a poet whispering,

“Lead on. Lead on.”