Yesterday
I met a man who told me
that chemistry
is an art.
And it occurred to me
that I had never thought it as such.
Never drawn parallel between
Van Gogh's lead laden source of joy
and the science I now practice
and am paid for; never spared a thought
for how shallow
paintings may have looked
without scientific intervention;
how the sea may have lost her lustre
in transfer from eye to brush to canvas
if it weren't for the presence
of Prussian Blue.
How, indeed, my own poetry
would be so less-mine
without the sciences I have studied
giving gateway to metaphor and imagery
otherwise beyond me
by more than an arm's length.
I am both scientist and artist.
Both logic and reckless beauty.
And it occurred to me yesterday
that there are so many divisions between the two
when there needn't be.
I wondered if Art and Science aren't
just siblings at war, fruitlessly
trying to see who can win the argument
over who Mum and Dad love best.
And it took me hearing another man tell me
that chemistry is an art
for me to see it myself,
even when I've been staring at it for years:
have you ever burned lithium
and watched the flame turn redder than
a dying sun? Or mixed water and bleach
and seen it light up the dark,
or watched solutions transition
from transparent to radiant pink
in the space of a second?
I want to dream of
Potassium Permanganate clouds
in a Copper Sulphate sky,
with a Sodium sun hanging low
and forgiving as it sets,
a bed of cool grass the shade of
verdant Nickel Chloride;
can't you see how glorious a picture this chemistry paints?
We are all saying the same thing;
we are just lost in translation.
One half saying art isn't science,
the other saying science isn't art,
and both being wrong:
they are the same side of the coin
each being read dependant of what side
you stand on.
Fortunate enough for me,
I stand in the middle -
I have the best of both worlds:
I am the artist who makes metaphors
out of chemistry, physics and biology;
I am the scientist who talks of art
as a life saving drug,
as a cerebral coping mechanism,
as a theory to the multifaceted question:
why are we here?
We are the answer. Art and science together,
all of it.
All of us.
Together.
YOU ARE READING
CREATING CONSTELLATIONS
Poesía"We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations. My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellation...
