The Sounds of Science
by Jeff "Dr Chordate" Moran
(with apologies to Simon and Garfunkel)

Hello, dark matter my odd friend,
I’ve come to seek for you again
In collisions, briefly, fleeting
Between elements on meeting.
And the fission that supplanted yin from yang
In the Big Bang
Lives in the sounds of science.

I express genes and talk to clones
Of sparrow-beets that gobble bones.
‘Neath the red glow of a heat lamp
I learned that cholera makes untold cramps,
And the flies and crabs made a crash into my knee on flight
So nits of mites
Could touch the sounds of science.

And in the Bakelite I saw
Quartets of beetles, maybe more.
Beetles talking without speaking.
Beetles hearing without listening.
Beetles writing songs that voices never shared
‘Cause no one dared
Disturb the sounds of science.

“Schools!” said I, “you do not know.
Science with its answers grows.”
Hear the birds that they might teach you
Making charms might reach you.
But the birds sat scient for a spell
With geckos
In the cells of science.

But then the people were afraid
At what evolution made.
And the genes flashed out a warning
With the proteins they were forming.
And the enzymes said the words of the crawfish
are written on the plant cell walls
And tinamou claws.
And whispered in the sounds of science.