A COSMIC LABYRINTH - Parts 1 - 6

This is the first six parts of what will eventually be a composite poem of twelve parts. It tries to reflect the complexity of living in an extraordinarily fast-changing technologically-driven world. To me, and I suspect to many others, the pace of change is so fast that we feel almost constantly off-balance: barely have we become familiar with one technology than it has been replaced by something faster, more sophisticated and often more puzzling. I sometimes wonder how this pace affects those who are professionally engaged in the broad sweep of scientific research and production: I think I would be quite fearful, although that might just be because of my profound ignorance of so many challenging and exciting fields! With that in mind, I acknowledge an arrogance in me in even trying to reflect this momentum of our age: so please accept it as a lay person’s struggle to express our science-shaped environment.

At the end of each ‘rest’ in a pavilion or haven will be a short stanza about having to hurry on, which again is perhaps an inexorable part of our living condition in the more-developed world: a sense that will, perhaps, soon assail large parts of the less-developed world too.

This icon has been devised to indicate the pattern of what is to follow. Each letter represents on of the 'Havens' of discovery that can be entered and as one passes or leaves a haven, the nature of the path changes, reflecting the major changes in life-patterns that many people experience. The background is an imaginary star-field reminding us that it is from stardust we came and to stardust we will ultimately go.

A Cosmic Labyrinth (Parts 1 - 6)

Setting Out (Part 1)

To weave a way through the puzzling imbalance of matter,

and strive for oasis at this labyrinth’s core,

Is a pilgrimage through tortured terrain

that shifts, closes in and even shatters,

needing charts to be ever redrawn,

of the backbreaking hills and slough-ridden plains..

We, constantly caught ‘twixt innovation,

unsettled by the newest, challenging trend

feel pressed to trudge through shifting sands,

tread rock-strewn paths, and baffling highways,

with never a sign of a welcoming end.

Driv’n to plough through tracts of complex problems,

yearning for shelter from persistently pressing demands.

Ah yes! But step aside from time to time;

pause in a ‘pavilion’; let interest be energized, renewed.

These are scattered about this cosmic labyrinth.

though most explorers can tarry at but few!       

The River (Part 2)

What change, the path now drifts

as a deep, slow river

and I am rafted in the current’s flow.

The banks coruscate with blue and purple flora.

Here, more a refuge

than many to which I might, on this itinerary, go.

As I meander on midst shameful plastic dross galore,

I reach at last the mysterious ocean’s waste-strewn shore.

The Cabin of Deep Oceanography

A plunge of unfathomable depth

and discomforting rapidity;

darkness and dense suspensions denying sight.

Scarce energy is spent

to probe for unknown wonders,

strange eyeless creatures, disorienting contours,

uncanny, boiling vents

veiled utterly from e’en the faintest glimpse of light.

And midst the bleak, sub-zero, barren blackness

is life unfathomable to our reason’s bounds

where energy derives from startling sources

miles, miles beneath the surface where the ocean pounds

The Path of the Lava-flow (Part 3)

Hideously now, the path’s a lava flow,

terrifying, unconstrained,

I cannot perceive any way to go safely,

but help is nigh at hand.

I am handed lightweight suit and mask

of fabrics I have never touched nor seen,

assured by the one who guides me

I will be safe from heat and gas and steam.

Impossible to my mind

yet as my guide steps out

I can see she’s safe, so I warily tread behind.

Another wonder on these unfolding paths

as technology reveals the indestructibility

of the cloth of a wondrous dream.

The Haven of Climatology

With trepidation, I prepare to settle

In this refuge with the world held on its heart,

For I know there are those who hate supporters

Of the watchful ones who see it as their part

To monitor phenomena from many sciences

That demonstrate the ways the world’s ill-served

By vested interests in defoliation,

In mineral rape, too few would see deterred:

In suffocation of its ecosystems

For gain, for gain, for gain, for gain, for gain

Then crying ‘Good is bad’ to mask the traces

Of the willfulness engendering so much pain.

But here I meet with wise, and careful experts

With evidence that climate-change is human-fuelled,

I’ll willingly engage within the haven

And build beyond, on wisdom there distilled,

Acknowledging that we, this age, are stewards

Of this amazing planet, so must share

With others of prophetic, lucid vision

And strength of mind and heart to deeply care

Enough to challenge monoliths with narrow focus,

an unremitting single-minded aim

That in the use of earth’s abundant treasure,

‘just they and their stakeholders stand to gain.

I know I must learn, I cannot celebrate.

Though I must go, I’ll point others on the way.

The Path of the Wormhole (Part 4)

Uncannily, the path becomes a ‘wormhole;’

stars, planets, gassy vortices press in on every side.

my speed defies all chance of estimation,

it is an unknown, unfettered roller-coaster ride.

The horizon bends and shifts with each precipitate turning

the walls are fluid as the Milky Way;

there is no knowing my ultimate destination.

I yearn increasingly to know

Where the next haven might lay

The Haven of Astrophysics

Herein, an aerial-bombardment of information;

space and earthbound telescopes

continuously disgorge

new findings, posing questions by the million:

turbulent outpourings from an unreachable cosmic forge,

a super-massive black hole,

a dust-filled bleak amorphous haze,

a hitherto inconceivable energy burst,

a back-moving planet, too close to its own sun’s blaze.

How can these streams of novel information

be tamed, be turned to valuable account?

Increasingly through voluntary, off-site workers:

enthusiastic amateurs

who, skilfully guided,

can help such unmanageable abundance, surmount

A Country Path (Part 5)

I am delighted now to brief, bestride

a broad grassed country trail.

Wild flowers abound, some forehead high

others so minute, they almost fail

to be observed as I tread keenly on:

revelling in a balmy summer sun

which draws out butterflies, brief here, then gone;

provokes aromas in a hedgerow, gunned

by gorse, aiming its seeds far beyond

the confines of the bank on which it grows,

to claim new territory for its kin,

in hope that no-one either ploughs or sows

in that new colony: a hope so slim,

for to humans, land-yielding oft is woe.

All about me, beauty prevails.

As I imbibe this flood of glory,

I wonder at its provenance.

Evolution makes so much sense

Yet seemingly cannot advance

the totality of this magnificent story.

The Hub of Communications Technologies

Relentlessness appears to rule in this roost,

words, tunes, images set to fly

invisibly and with increasing rapidity

from A, B, C, to G, H, I

and well beyond.

Potentially the whole world echoing

vibrating to the sound of massive viral drum

that demands, titillates,

or simply provokes curiosity

and maybe wastes time –

or renders one, upon an instant dumb.

Planned Time Out, perhaps a lesson to be learned

in this particular school,

to be a restorative from the tempestuous wave-forms

of the global messaging pool.

I long to learn, I long to rest,

but I am beckoned on, I cannot stay.

The Herb Strewn Path (Part 6)

 I rejoin the path where I have seeming lost my way in time

(that tyrant that pursues, presses and never retreats from his inexorable line).

So, unbelievably, I am in herb-strewn passage of yester-year;

for never would one tread such path today.

Rather we would have synthetic infusions

sold at vast premiums to sublimate our angst away!

But I, delighted, step on rosemary, bay and thyme

entrancing me with every tread

and wonder what these surging attars rouse within my head:

this warming glow,

this restfulness.

Ah! The neuroscientist , at least in part, will know.

Ponder it not now. For here I’m envious of earlier kin,

lives most harsh compared to mine,

who, on occasion would unclose a door, step in,

be drenched by balm of herbs

upon a floor – sublime.

or should I truer say, divine?

The Haven of Neuroscience.

Enter here with caution

for it is the province of the brain:

astounding abilities are here being explored

within that mass of cerebral tissues and circuits,

which can impressively put in train

connections, memories, inspirations, surprises

and thankfully, with prosaic regularity

the mundane;

the actions and reactions of the day-by-day.

The firing of neurons, the activation of synapses

and each distinctive part

of this complex organ are wonders for our contemplation,

challenges to understand how we respond to tradition,

to novelty, to learning and to art.

Here is all processed and we can each be sure

no-one else will respond to a set of  circumstances

Exactly as we will.

We will, in some way stand apart

from others and determine our own resolutions

to every second of the day; to the grips and demands

of the institutions

that help define us:

and occasionally to react to revolutions!

‘Tis here our speech is triggered, our senses and our range of motions

and step by step understandings are being built

which more clearly define such questions

as the seat of our emotions.

How is it that deep within our being lies

A sense of the transcendant

which some would wish to reduce to basic electronic pulses.

But others will perhaps

rejoice to know our wondrous brain can find space for the resplendent,

the awesome, the loving, the wondrous and the beautiful

and see in that a further journey

drawing us towards the numinous.

I long to learn, I long to rest,

but I am beckoned on, I cannot stay.

And amidst all this perplexity, there is obviously a huge amount to celebrate as scientific discovery helps us to understand more and more about our wonderful earth and our staggering cosmos. I like to give thanks for this and have framed that thanksgiving in A Thanksgiving for the Wonders of Science