in honor of earth day & national poetry month...

Knowledge is a wonderful thing. It's fascinating to learn how something works, to see the driving force of science in nature, broken down into little pieces that fit perfectly together in the solid, irrefutable truth of an equation or formula. And it is important, too, to gain knowledge of ourselves and our world; how it works and how we can work together.

But sometimes... sometimes I think we can become too wrapped up in the dry facts and mechanics of things to see the beauty of them, plain and simple, letting textbooks and manuals rule our world. Or always needing answers, preoccupying ourselves with definitions and explanations, trying to make everything in our lives fit into perfectly ordered boxes and categories.

I think that sometimes in our lives we need the divine mystery, the childlike sense of wonder. Sometimes we need to forget about the how and the why and the where, and merely celebrate the is. To throw away the map and revel in being lost, knowing that eventually we'll reach the destination, in our own way, with only our heart and the stars to guide.

I think Whitman understood this.

When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer

-Walt Whitman (1819-1892)-

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.