If It Should Turn Out That We

After Chiding The Theologian For His Reliance On Myth And Miracle, Science Found Itself In The Unenviable Position Of Having To Create Mythology Of Its Own: Namely, The Assumption That What, After Long Effort, Could Not Be Proved To Take Place Today Had, In Truth, Taken Place In The Primeval Past.

[on Common Water.] Its Substance Reaches Everywhere; It Touches The Past And Prepares The Future; It Moves Under The Poles And Wanders Thinly In The Heights Of Air. It Can Assume Forms Of Exquisite Perfection In A Snowflake, Or Strip The Living To A Single Shining Bone Cast Up By The Sea.

Tomorrow Lurks In Us, The Latency To Be All That Was Not Achieved Before.

Once In A Lifetime, Perhaps, One Escapes The Actual Confines Of The Flesh. Once In A Lifetime, If One Is Lucky, One So Merges With Sunlight And Air And Running Water That Whole Eons, The Eons That Mountains And Deserts Know, Might Pass In A Single Afternoon Without Discomfort.

One (practitioner Of Science) Is The Educated Man Who Still Has A Controlled Sense Of Wonder Before The Universal Mystery, Whether It Hides In A Snail's Eye Or Within The Light That Impinges On That Delicate Organ.