Science, that simple saint, cannot be
Figuring what anything is for:
Enough for her devotions that things
And can be contemplated soon as gathered.
She knows how every living thing was fathered,
She calculates the climate of each star,
She counts the fish at sea, but cannot
Why any one of them exists, fish, fire or feathered.
Why should she?
Her religion is to
By rote her rosary of perfect answers.
Metaphysics she can leave to man:
She never wakes at night in heaven or
Staring at darkness.
In her holy
There is no darkness ever: the pure
Burns, the beads drop briskly from her hand.
Who dares to offer Her the curled sea shell!
She will not touch it!—knows the world she
Is all the world there is!
Her faith is perfect!
And still he offers the sea shell . . .
What
Of what far sea upon what unknown
Troubles forever with that asking sound?
What surge is this whose question never ceases?
