Oh, this next poem, ‘Fractal,’ was actually in the magazine Scientific American, which, believe it or not, has a poetry column.
Fractal If I were made of homunculi the way a cauliflower head is made of little noggins would I be gorgeous like this green one— a field of rockets each nippled with hard cones?
I do have an ongoing interest in the sciences. This poem starts with a quote from the biologist Nick Lane that I came across:
Simply ‘were molecular machines operating on energy freely available from such sources as thermodynamic processes.’ It sounds so benign when you put it like that. Our earliest ancestors were accelerants. They ate change. Where does that leave us? — - — Do I believe that formulating a problem in the starkest possible way while making strange and conspicuous word choices is helpful? What if the answer is no? — - — Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire. Your children Narrative Scattered against dark conifers. The seared gold trees I take for signal fires. You too. What do you think they're saying? — - — In fiction, time runs both ways and the past is legible, harmless. — - — Question: How are beauty and meaning connected? Beauty seduces meaning. Meaning stalks beauty. Beauty breaks down into meaning. Meaning breaks down into dreams.
And lastly …
Forests Grotto of letter Clusters, grove of T's. Do I believe There’s safety in numbers, in number? — - — AI spells death to truck stops and their gift shops packed with lonesome doodads. — - — How rhythm once defined distance— I mean, domesticated it. — - — Each neuron broadcasts its call sign (plaintively?) until another homes in and a synapse forms. — - — Woody bark covers the shoots.
