Scientists

  

The beauty of nature is suspect.

Oh yes, the splendor of flowers.

Science is concerned to deprive us of illusions.

Though why it is eager to do so is unclear.

The battle among genes, traits that secure success, gains and losses.

My God, what language these people speak

In their white coats. Charles Darwin

At least had pangs of conscience

Making public a theory that was, as he said, devilish:

And they? It was, after all, their idea:

To segregate rats in separate cages.

To segregate humans, write off as a genetic loss

Some of their own species and poison them.

“The pride of the peacock is the glory of God,”

Wrote William Blake. There was a time

When disinterested beauty by its sheer superabundance

Gratified our eyes. What have they left us?

Only the accountancy of a capitalist enterprise.

      —Czeslaw Milosz, “Scientists,” Second Space

~ by Alypius on September 14, 2007.