Irony

I just read that gravity is not a force driving you downAs you slouch in your rocker, brooding, but the rocker’s powerPushing you up. Now, does that make sense? Einstein, natch.So how deal with speculations that defy everything we know,And, let’s face it, we could not have dreamed up gravityIf our mothers’ lives depended on it. . . no, thank another geniusFor that, Newton, an utterly paranoid man who saw angels.Because we everyday lifers don’t need gravity—though some levityWouldn’t hurt—we don’t need quanta and protons and dark matter(now they’re telling us that ninety-six percent of the universeIs missing!) and ultraviolet catastrophes and double slitsThat “prove” light is both a wave and particle at once.Imagine. Almost like saying you can be dead and alive at once,Like that famous cat. No, we can do without metaphysics andTheoretical physics and Dr. Phil and anything that makes usFear and distrust our own minds. When I clutch a brick I don’tWant to know that it’s composed almost entirely of empty space—Atoms, remember? Tiny solar systems, all that vacancy.(And now we hear that electrons are not sub-atomicChildren going round and round on a carousel—they’re smearsShrouding the nucleus like mist, like phantoms.)I want a solid, redolent, meaty brick, a macho brick,And I want to spread equally sturdy mortar on one sideAnd affix it to another brick and I want to build a wall of bricksThat withstands hurricanes and tsunamis and any geniusWho comes along to inform me that my brick wallIs an illusion. Therefore, we must shun education altogetherAnd get back to carriage bolts and cedar shingles and 2x4’sAnd concrete slabs and maybe a glass of Merlot or two.Grapes, now we’re talking. And don’t tell me how MerlotIs made. I don’t want to know. Or how to build bridgesThat will collapse. Or why chickens cross the road.Down with what we can’t see, taste, feel, hear and smell,Though if something’s got to go, take smell. I’ve inhaledEnough foulness for a lifetime and so have you.Henceforth we shall staple our faith onto the real,Not the imaginary, not the far out, not weirdness . . . Faith in thumbtacks, charcoal, each other’s flesh, chicken soup(those who didn’t make it across), rocks, salt tang of the oceanAnd, of course, faith in King God basking in heaven as He suffersOur every mewling prayer, bestows manna and mercy,Redeems the miasmal, contagious ignoranceShrouding our cores, our own nuclei, with His breath.