Human Genome - Annunciation (2)

Through language’s mental labyrinth,
hunting poetry, super-natural words -

even her limping, clanging, sugary,
shuffling kin, will do – try, at least.

Truffling metaphor - rusty tongues
forcing creaking similes; bulging,

dusty words dug from untilled hearts -
mining a foreign vocabulary lurking

at the communal roots of trained, pared,
buzzing brains - now re-programming -

re-wiring for analogy, wonder, beauty -
pilfering dictionary, religion, Thesaurus,

speechwriter’s tools, movie trailers…
to really nail it; spell pictures, stories,

explanatory images - comprehension
for the mutual canvas of human mind,

for noble ignoramuses, the alien brothers
munching crisps on sofas, open-mouthed.

Scientists, Presidents, Prime Ministers -
Journalists groping for poetry’s ruthless

skeleton, her iron and silver,
musical soul; luxurious halo –

beauty, hung like morning breath
over a lake in England. Searching

for words that shine enough to tell of this;
say, mean, explain, carry enough weight -

here is the Word of Life,
natural poem of creation;

verse of mankind, read -
sublime art of chemistry.

Here is the magic binding Earth,
and all that lives – grape to man,

lemur, snail, seed -
flowers and fingers;

so, yes, let’s hear that resonating diction,
holy grammar - rare, special inflection -

I say unto you, they are groping
for God under robe and beard -

for the God Genome
which created Christ -

under centuries made in man’s image.
God hated by science - God of Blood

and Spirit both; a blurred, unanalysable thorn
in the grown-ungiving crystal heart of science.

Because nothing else fits this concept;
revelation, truth - realisation, insight -

but holy words, their old gold beaten,
recyled, gleaming, into a cup refined -

because it’s clear, even an aetheist,
in extremis, sometimes needs God.

‘THE GENOME IS IN. Except for a few jots, tittles and i's yet to be dotted, all of the basic links in the chain of DNA that spells out humanity's genetic endowment are now known, ready to be studied in exquisite detail, scientists announced yesterday. The achievement - a true milestone in science - was announced at a White House news conference by President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair - via satellite hookup - and scientists who led the international gene-finding venture… Clinton stated: “Today we are learning the language in which God created life.” And yesterday they celebrated, telling the world they had achieved their goal-and then some... As scientists scramble to unravel every last bit of information in the human genes, what they're digging into is, in fact, the common denominator of everyone. ..Collins recently urged hundreds of researchers at a major genome meeting to help people understand what is going on, and where genome research is leading. He said his fellow scientists need to open up and communicate publicly about their work in the pursuit of genes….he said scientists need to emerge from their laboratories and share their genetic wisdom, to be ambassadors for their science. Helping people understand the genome would also take about 19 years if one tried to read out every bit of chemical information stored therein. But that's exactly what scientists are now doing - reading this encyclopedia of life - in a big hurry.’ Robert Cooke, Newsday

Seeing the means of our own creation -
written on screen, just four little letters;

A, C, G, T - such uncluttered magic,
stark alchemy, fantastic simplicity -

beauty under android skin,
in the true soul of Science,

shows poetry’s flexible nature, the plastic
character of art - exploratory heart, better

able to elasticise such explanation;
expand facts to meaning, describe.

‘We are seeing the handwriting of God’ -
they say, struggling for a better metaphor

to spear, skewer us a moment on our sofas,
like those butterflies caught flying in boxes;

harpoon us from everyday seas -
oncoming, small smashing waves.

Our ears so long deaf to alien Science,
left behind with leather satchel smell -

Mercury like fallen angel tears,
blood of a star, soul of Silver -

crucible, Potassium, Lithium -
crystal, salt, element, litmus…

even then poetry could not be denied to Science;
invasion, nature as permeating light, everywhere.


They know they must tell us, as apostles,
sages informing fellow citizens of Earth;

Wise Men, leaders. Those few who understand
must bear witness, explain and communicate -

not as burden, onerous duty, but in celebration,
wonder - good news of our beauty, miraculous

nature – we are books, letters that have been read -
universal as a poem, particular as a fingerprint, eye.

More poem than machine, brute flesh factory -
that thinking, selfish, impoverished machine

constructed by a limiting mind, excluding
uncomfortable concepts of consciousness;

burning soul like a dispensible phosphorous flare –
not for illumination, but ashes, diminuition; denial

of phoenix principle - altruism, love – so consigned
with unicorns, griffons, mermaids, dragons, centaurs,

magic; fairies as pollution, bluebottles, flies -
angels cast as albatrosses, vampires, vultures.


We dream of wings because the Human Genome
is an angel whose virtual wings are now clipped -

her sleeping genes are not unwritten;
furled, inform body, thought, legend.

We love flowers, country, each other,
because the Genome is brother, sister,

parent and child, to everything that lives -
astounding, ancient, perpetual Earth child;

genetic horde, prize, gallery and art.
How will they properly say it then -

but with the whiff of glory, rumble
of scriptural thunder; Psalm, poem -

without the skins of beauty, her shine,
resurrected mists of mystery shifting.

Without being open-mouthed - sloshing
star-colour wonder; brushing information,

sequencing software/hardware, wildly
difficult chemistry, complex processes -

hearing best of all, that silver triangle sound
rung at truth’s simple heart - her parables -

so much room in the concept, metaphor,
reality of the deciphered, holy Genome,

to house everything so comfortably within -
visions men had wrongly turned to enemies,

friction, opposition - so many finding -
bizarrely, the best science needs poetry.