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Make observations.

Control sample: one thousand swings,
Or less, perhaps, of moon around the earth.
Observed that stilted compass; watched the things
That seemed conventional from birth to birth.

First quarter to the neonate for growth,
The next for seeding and bestowing nurture,
The third for taking essences from both,
The fourth for slow decline and then departure.

Noted the sparseness of the cycle. Crammed
Into its pint pot scarcely space to ponder –
How this crabbed business of survival dammed
Upsurge of meditation and of wonder.

And the bird sang and the woods rang:
They must wear it like the weather.

Form a hypothesis.

They take it mainly as a rough schematic –
Mere means, not end: only such crude surmise
(They say) explains how machinations so erratic
May come from the all-loving or all-wise

As drawn to prototypes: the finished thing
Perhaps of huge longevity and span –
They, brief expendables who are to fling
Forward the Logos for some future man,

Their sacrifice’s nurseling. So their view
Runs far ahead of what was first ordained.
They cannot see that they were valid too,
Also for them the dolorous blow sustained.

Sad (sang the bird) that none of them heard.
They must wear it like the weather.

Make a prediction.

On facts to hand, prognosis beggars candour –
Condemns the venture. As their driven kind
Draws down the gulags, Birkenau, Rwanda,
A frenzy oversets their heart and mind,

Spawning for aeons yet the rack and gallows,
The choking gases and the death of hope,
The cross and gibbet for their rarest hallows –
Hemlock for some, for others fire or rope.

In what dimensions yet to wrench their being
Will this old cancer flail out and transmute
Until enlightenment fades to unseeing
And all collapses back to snarling brute?

The fact remains, sang the bird, for their pains
They must wear it like the weather.

Perform the experiment.

Theirs the experiment. There is no other.
Cain’s endless cycle played on, never ceasing.
“Oh stop your womb”, they cry, “you mad earth-mother!
Your child has always turned and slain his brother,
Deaf to all amnesty. No sign of easing”.

Looks like rain, sang the bird again.
Best wear it like the weather.

Analyse the results.

A failure? Who can tell. They have no seer
To say how long the tale, or what the odds.
They know bad luck like theirs can sometimes veer,
Hinting of better weather, kindlier gods.

Odd chinks of light stir them like arctic flowers.
Dark moods can shift for them, some voice may call,
Almost as though the unconfiding powers
Were pushing secretly to spring for all.

“On down the track”, they sigh, “Strike up anew
The song we had of science from the start:
That no hypothesis can stand as true,
And all we have is still the human heart”.

Father of Light (I said) You see them freeze,
Counting their hurt as Yours from time unknown.
What purpose do you keep aside for these,
Blind and tormented, stumbling on alone?

Of that, sang the bird, I carry no word.
Woe’s them called to face it out together
With nothing answering for their command,
Save to wear it, wear it, wear it like the weather.

© Colin Bailey, January 2007