Coda

In old stone seats of learning dead minds taught
worlds stitched of atoms indivisible,
like lonely dust of poor Cumaean Sybil
in timeless solitude returned to naught.
Others a smaller treasure yet still sought
in distant realms strange and invisible.
In florid foreign shades our risible
souls with a foaming sea of quarks are fraught.

Their nature presents ours a cold visage
protean protons dance away elusive.
Does hubris fuel the dreams of minds who dare
presume to weave the truth from the mirage?
A remnant grain of hope still makes us stare
and grasp and snatch at ghosts of things conclusive.


George Barton, 2016