We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

4.1.24

Leading Us to Wonder


I watch the beautiful and boyish

Professor Brian Cox with his rich voice

explore, for us, the Universe – deep space.

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra trace

the swirling images with music: vast,

towering, lifting … as the first and last 

edges of creation float before us

onscreen, 'til the crescendoing chorus

leaves us – with the triumphant scientist 

and the awed conductor – freed from the mist

of ignorant speculation now, to 

thrill and wonder. But questioning how to

alert the short-sighted fools in power:

evolved life’s all here – its final hour?



Form: Clarian sonnet



Notes:


As far as can be discovered and deduced, ours appears to be the only planet in this universe where life has evolved beyond a single cell.


The concert ‘Symphonic Horizons’ had four performances from 30 Nov to 2 Dec 2023. You can Google it for details of the music chosen.  I watched a TV recording of a rehearsal, aired in Jan 2024.


Brian Cox was a musician before becoming a scientist.




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