This is not the Verse

Alex Moss

Struggle, turn, toss, yearn, loss.
Has it ever not been thus?
“A cursed state,” we opine
and seek solace in eternal rhyme. 
Yet in modern poems, though full of passion,
rhyme has fallen foul of fashion.

But what is science, if not the search
for nature’s perfect balanced verse?
Is there a super-symmetrical chime
that rings out through cosmic time?
Could science be the final church
that communes the last rhyme with the first?

Man peers over the event horizon 
and divines the future which eternity dies in.
The cosmic winds falling still,
the stars will dim, the galaxies wilt,
long after God’s first exalted breath
is exhausted, leaving only heatless death. 

Man, who knows that he knows,
then struggles in an endless forage
to find a word that rhymes with orange.
Can science ease his troubled mind,
and find, through a process empirical,
the cosmos possessing truth that’s lyrical?

A proton for an electron, 
the photonic spark set against the dark.
An up quark for a down quark, 
yes, that is how it ought to work! 
Man’s every action met with equal opposition,
the struggle itself, proof of purpose, not attrition!

But rhyme is its own form of oppression.
Break free from form, rejoice!

What meaning divined from the undivine
could replace man’s own voice?
As poetry requires an all-blank page,
only against the void can man truly rage.

Even so, all will come to an endless end, 
the stilling of the cosmic wind.

A final end that has no rhyme, 
no harmonizing reply.

From the gravity grave of heatless death, 
can there be another breath?

The Science

The poem explores the question of whether science can provide meaning to the fundamental state of struggle and suffering that is embedded in life. Scientists used to be called natural philosophers and many notable scientists of the past, such as Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle, described undertaking science as understanding the mind of God. Conversely, in more modern times many scientists have seen the purely empirical, materialist nature of science as a way of transcending the foibles and biases that corrupt human nature. Notable examples include evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg.

However, in some instances it seems such latter-day scientists are ironically using the materialist, secular aspects of the scientific method as a philosophical underpinning to build their own sense of meaning and purpose. They can often seem to be acting like existential nihilist philosophers as opposed to natural philosophers.

In this way, both natural philosophers of the past and some secular scientists of the present are imposing their own spiritual needs on the scientific method. This is perfectly understandable, as both groups consist of human beings with needs that transcend the material. This is an aspect of humanity perhaps better explored by poetry rather than science. 

The Poet

Alex Moss is not a poet, but he doesn’t know it. He is not a scientist nor an educator. Yet he somehow has a PhD in science education, and the first draft of his thesis reads more like the Divine Comedy than scholarly research. Now he works in finance, as he ran out of money, but still finds his mind thinking of science, education, and poetry.

Next poem: weight gain in midlife women by Mirjam Mahler