Cousin, Thief
Lee Slonimsky
Fogsmear blurs the mountain crown at dawn,
and then it rains; you feel the molecules
as droplets inside drops or so you think:
yes hydrogen and oxygen can leak
from rain’s reality, on through the skin
(chill lathering). That’s where science begins.  

If only science had far fewer rules,
since just this blaze of sudden sunlight thrills:
sun’s hydrogen to helium engulfs
and you can feel these photons -- tingling breath! --
and all of it is science in the pores.

But soon it will be autumn, yellow leaves
and other dank replacements for June seethe:
that slow ingress of barren for the wolf,
coyote, cardinal.  Science does this work:
whichever theorems, laws that one believes,
it’s science that’s the crackling of a leaf
and its cousin Time,
that ever rambling thief.

Return to Spring 2013 Table of Contents