Author Information
@ 27.225 MHz: Elegy For James Tiptree, Jr.
"But when they go that tip still tips the tree."
---Wallace Stevens, "Le Monocle De Mon Oncle," 10
Far back, in dim, shadowed recesses of time,
something crawled from the rank, preternatural slime;
between gills and lungs, between four limbs and two
(nor thinking of spawn that became me and you),
with eyes learning fast the addiction to light
(dragging itself without faith from the ooze of this site),
it stared at the stars emerging the night,
the glories---the beauty---that stay beyond reach
no matter how much we strive or beseech.
And we, addicted to light and the awe
of its presence in darkness, are held in the thrall,
thrashing about just to answer that call.
Ethics, science and technology;
painting, music, and love's sweet ecstasy
ebb and flow upon the incessant surge,
the expression of that---even cellular---urge,
perhaps the provenance of our evolution,
the quest that neither finds, nor wants, conclusion
This is the spray of the elusive fountain
of youth, and the slope of the barren mountain,
upon which, exhausted on the barren peak,
the elderly ascetics futiley seek
to bind themselves to that which no release
to the lower nature bodes an ecstasy,
visions of which no earthly language can fully speak,
measures too transfinite for poetry.
Starward
