Tuesday, February 07, 2023

MENDELEEV'S DREAM (OF THE PERIODIC TABLE)

merely to mention mendeleev's dream

would seem to evoke old poetry itself

and wrapped in mythic clouds imperiously

tormenting as a sea can be

with little warning jarring the soul

a self contained poem a chromatic fantasy

a place in which to hide the gold of

improbable discovery rendered suddenly luminous

not a paint by numbers set

not something flawlessly retrieved from the files

and point by point graphed to dry smiles, or applause

gentlemen oh now we know of course, we should have seen it

as an easy certainty, a puzzle fixed in place

showcased under glass in the dusty museum

the fact that it came to him in a dream

imagery and the whole intact

frustrating forever those who want

the numbers to line up the facts

and let that be an end to it astounds

just as the moon emerging from clouds

dreaming enters in

and spoils the impersonal logic expected

conclusively

Enters in: the beauty of another realm defended

beauty irself tresspasses here and mystery tiptoes in

that should have been banned but had the last interpretive

role

in the play astonishes me so that I praise

the God of all mysteries of beauty improvident

and excessive breaching the barrier 

between art and science, waking and sleeping

although these days from the hearse of the data driven

many curse that it happened that way and will not

acknowledge it

at all.

because their god is just too small.

mary angela douglas 8 february 2023

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