Emotional Life in the Universe by Jim Mann
Instead of noisy static, we hear clear beats
grouped in patterns of seven and eleven.
Our entire team is galvanized; not even
the frequent napper holds back to see who gets
to break this code. At last this is the breech
in the chaos where we’ve plunged our heads
for years. If this is more than just a glitch
in our equipment, we’ll do as it bids.
We work around the clock like beings driven
by unseen forces. Take-out pizza boxes
fill up the lab. All effort goes toward solving
the encrypted message. The smell of pizza mixes
with smells of a gym locker room: not even
the need to run a clean, tight ship relaxes
the grip of this obsession. Where it leads
is up for grabs. In face of all the scads
of data, interpretation lags behind.
Prime numbers turn to other universals –
Planck’s constant, pi, the speed of light. The mind
of each researcher is party to rehearsals
that leap from a quantitative kind
of knowing through sensual feeling parcels
to mountains forests horses starlight art
and magical perceptions of the heart.
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