Mary Anna Evans
Both Particle and Wave A geologist considers a soil core sample, assessing its rust-red color, its silty texture, the presence of moisture or its lack. A chemist watches a clear liquid swirling in a beaker until it goes suddenly red. A marine biologist straps on fins and a bottle of air, wishing only to be where the fish are. They have a trait in common. Probably, they have several traits in common, but one of them transcends. They all have the capacity for an immersive focus that makes time stop. They are able to look for the truth of something, get a glimpse of it, and then pursue it with devotion, hoping for another glimpse. Poets might not think that they understand scientists, but they do. They share a need to pay attention. They, too, know how to observe for the sake of observation. They report findings and hope that readers will understand their significance. They believe that the world needs them as witnesses. Our culture has a curious disconnect dividing people of science from people of art. An artificial distinction separates lovers of words from lovers of numbers, despite the fact that they exist in the same space. Numbers and their relationships drive poems. Iambic pentameter is nothing more than strings of words that can be divided into ten syllables or five feet, and yet it is so close to the natural feel of our speech that we call its verse blank. It is speech rendered as numbers. It is numbers rendered as speech. Free verse is constructed of words as carefully laid as a mosaic, which is itself nothing but geometry made tangible. Poets build poems only when they are done for the moment with observing. They build them when they have something to say, and not before. Try getting an engineer to speak before she has something to say, and see how far you get. Ask a physician whether your cancer will kill you, and listen to him fall back on probability. He will not tell you what he does not yet know. Ask a poet the same question, and you will get an answer that makes the words “metastasis” and “oncogene” harsh and beautiful and true, but the answer will leave your question dangling. The only true answer to “Will I die?” is “Yes, but I can’t tell you when.” Liars are not attracted to the sciences or to poetry. The answers of poets and scientists may be oblique, but they are rigorously true. These are people who cannot allow falsehood to creep into their work, because a single lie will strip the value from anything else they ever say.
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