Mendel's Prayer

Angie Lo

My God, is this the end, where all is lost,
Where all I strived for, all I ever wrote
Is trampled to the ground? I could not think
I would be like this, but when Schaffgotsch came,
I shrank in the cathedral at his words
As he in sheepskin gloves could only look
Me over with disdain. My dirty hands
He took, and turning said, “Beware of him
Who turns from God, while deigning to instead
In glassy temples seek the fading blooms,
And stains new paper fit for hymns with tales
And sketches crude of what he there observes.
He pries the widened leaves apart, and twists
Them with the pages of the Word to make
False laurels for his own. Hands smeared with dirt,
He gains the earth, but loses his own self.”
Then at the Gottesdienst he looked at me
One final time, and said, “Heed thus, Mendel,
Make no path for yourself but of this verse:
Dein Wille geschehe.¹”

Dein Wille geschehe! I had known those words,
New-painted on a slate within the room
Where I’d been left behind, for I could do
Naught in my childhood sickness. So I lay,
And finding meager comfort from the fire,
I fixed my eyes upon the little tile,
Till sleep would come at last. The words remained,
Etched in a cross about my neck, that I
Would turn within my hands, alone inside
The room where strict examiners once asked
Me questions that the answers never followed.
And in the colours of cathedral glass,
Where Augustine was crafted as he said
To mark these words, for all that ever was
But points to Him.

My God, if, as they say, it is Your will
That I must cast away my work, then I
Should think to blot my tables, shut these notes,
And bury them beneath the painted scrolls.
I should think all these things-- and yet within,
I know I cannot pry my mind away
From all the quietness of rustling flowers
The garden ​Pisum ​had in early spring.
They brimmed against the air as they would swell
Towards the greenhouse arch, and I would sit
And brush fine pollen grains from gentle blooms
Like strokes on paper.

My God who loves the flowers of the field,
Who clothes them in deep purple and in white,
Is it such sin to know the way You made
The beauty of their habits, which they share
With all their children? I remember when
I traced the very nature of their hue,
The very path it took as it was drawn
From old to young. And that relief I felt
To realize that though I only saw
One predecessor’s mark, the other one
Had not been lost, but still was carried down,
And lay within; that comfort to have known
That none were meant to have been left behind.
I once recall a service where I sat
Still as a child --where I first heard the verse--
And there I heard the preacher talk at length
Of birds, and how not one was left, or lay
Outside their Father’s care. O Augustine,
Who said that all things do but point to God,
Do all these notes and tables then but place
A light towards the love they call divine,
Where all small things are e’er attended to,
And, by Your will, none should be left behind?

If such things should be worthy, Lord, then I
Shall keep these notes, as science and as praise.
And if the message may not come to light
Within this time, then may You keep it as
A flower’s hue. For if it is not seen
By those who pass among this generation,
Then may it lie there covered, but not cast,
And there remain. For there may be a time,
Where it is met (as flower-colours’ marks
Meet one alike when carried down its path),
With some like mind; and it resurfaces,
Full and resplendent blooming to the sun.

¹Translates to “Thy will be done.” These words were printed on a tile in the living room of Mendel’s childhood home.

The Science

Gregor Mendel was an Augustinian friar and biologist, who studied at the University of Vienna and served at St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno. He devoted himself to studying the methods of genetic inheritance via experiments on pea plants in the abbey's garden. He discovered inheritance’s basic foundations, including the equal passing down of genes from both parents, as well as recessive traits that could be masked in one generation but reappear in the next. In this poem, Mendel reflects on some of his experiments and discoveries, while interweaving them with insights from his faith.

The Poet

Angie Lo is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, currently studying English and Physiology. She enjoys reading and writing poetry in her spare time (Shakespeare, Herbert, and Rossetti are some of her favourites), and performing her pieces at various arts events. She is honoured to be a part of ​Consilience ​for the first time, and hopes to continue exploring the intersection between literature and the sciences. Connect with her via email at 15angielo@gmail.com​.

Next poem: My dreams by Gaby Sambuccetti