By Acyutananda
Honorable Mention, Poetry, Create | Encounter 2020
Galileo’s telescope
Caused him conflict with the pope,
While his science-based position
Antagonized the Inquisition.
“My friend,” they said, “We fail to see!
Why ask for trouble? Just agree.”
The earth beneath their feet seemed stable.
Other options were off the table.
“Don’t start this fight. You’re bound to lose.
That’s an offer that you can’t refuse.”
Since then we note this constant theme:
Some truths are deeper than they seem,
Yet some folks there will always be
Who view things superficially.
So if you want to know what’s certain
You have to go behind the curtain.
If you won’t take that bitter pill
You’ll claim the earth is standing still.
So undergo a little pain,
And open up your angry brain.
A single cell, you like to say,
Despite its load of DNA
Is not a glorious thing like you –
Learned in how to tie your shoe,
Full of grievance-study expertise,
And a repertoire of fallacies.
You were a one-celled thingamabob,
But now an overweening snob.
“A speck that I can barely see,
Lacking any advanced degree,
Is not aware. It’s just a sham.
I fail to see why I should give a damn.”
You forgot your days with an umbilical cord
Once you won that Golden Globes award.
But whatever you may call that cell,
It knows some tricks that all your swell
Circle of friends can never do,
Such as how to be one-celled, then be two.
How to be two-celled, then be four,
And soon to pop right through the door.
If the life is ended it was starting to live,
Something is taken that you would never give.
Your future is all that matters to you,
But those victims had a future too.
Yet you clutch your pearls, you drink your tea.
You get offended. You fail to see.
Artist Statement:
The title of the poem is “Failing To See.” “I fail to see” is most commonly used sarcastically to mean “I fail to see anything because there is nothing there to see.” But here I play with it. Two characters say it intending sarcasm, but they genuinely fail to see – they fail to see the reality of our solar system, or the humanity of the unborn.
If you enjoyed this piece, here are two more pro-life poems of mine: The first originally appeared in the February 2016 edition of Life Matters Journal: "The Ghost in the Garbage Can." And the second, a poem on pro-life feminism, originally appeared on the Pro-Life San Francisco blog: "Civil War."