‘It turns out we can shoot the shit all night, stein after Stein, anecdote on anecdote, until the first light swarms over the water like thistledown on fire. Then the fog disappears which is, of course, the day clearing its throat for speech.’ Albert Goldbarth

Listen again

Listen; crippled trees are speaking

to a dishevelled Moon and wind -

green voices in groaning night -  

tincture of animal, haunted man,

weird language of werewolves,

nymph-whispering - mermaid,

siren singing - some old dark tongue

we can almost comprehend, process.

We have recognised before, tree language;

leaf, limbs, faces - torsos, wrists, fingers -

known spirit-housing, at dark alone

in foot-muffled wood, among moss,

probable goblins, loss of possible creatures

of light - appealing brotherhood, praying

to good trees, as living repositories of kindness,

patience, for safe passage. Inarticulate murmurs,

understood when we did not know their word;

likewise bird, primate - but deaf to the mouse,

humble worm turning under leaves -

word of them speaking our language,

written in the ancient letters -

holy silence of skin, leaf, fur.

‘An increasing number of eukaryotic genes are being found to have naturally occurring antisense transcripts. Here we study the extent of antisense transcription in the human genome by analyzing the public databases of expressed sequences using a set of computational tools designed to identify sense-antisense transcriptional units on opposite DNA strands of the same genomic locus. The resulting data set of 2,667 sense-antisense pairs was evaluated by microarrays containing strand-specific oligonucleotide probes derived from the region of overlap. Verification of specific cases by northern blot analysis with strand-specific riboprobes proved transcription from both DNA strands. We conclude that 60% of this data set, or 1,600 predicted sense-antisense transcriptional units, are transcribed from both DNA strands. This indicates that the occurrence of antisense transcription, usually regarded as infrequent, is a very common phenomenon in the human genome. Therefore, antisense modulation of gene expression in human cells may be a common regulatory mechanism.’ Nature, 2003

Naturally occurring antisense transcripts

I can think of several human beings

displaying the effects of anti-sense

modulation in their expressions;

what’s next - the mechanisms

for non-sense - the genes for talking crap?

Might I suggest a few experimental models

among the general population to detect,

and study the Parlo-crapus gene family.

‘In the beginning was the Word. The Word proselytised the sea with its message, copying itself unceasingly and forever – the Word discovered how to rearrange chemicals so as to capture little eddies in the stream of entropy and make them live – the Word transformed the land surface of the planet from a dusty hell to a verdant paradise. The Word eventually blossomed and became sufficiently ingenious to build a porridgy contraption called a human brain that could discover and become aware of the Word itself.’ Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, 2000

 ‘But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze/ By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags/ Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,/ which image in their bulk both lakes and shores/ And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear/ The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible/ Of that evernal language, which thy God/ Utters, who from eternity doth teach/ Himself in all, and all things in himself./ Great universal teacher! he shall mould/ Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.’ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Frost at Midnight, 1798

‘In our culture at present, people find it somewhat surprising that an idea can be large enough to have both a scientific and a religious aspect. This is because, during the last century, our ideas of religion, of science, and indeed of life have all become narrowed in a way that makes it difficult to get these topics into the same perspective. (Here our window has become a good deal narrower that it was when Galileo and Newton and Faraday used it. They never doubted these things belonged together).’ Mary Midgley, Science and Poetry, 2003

‘Science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration towards truth and understanding. The sources of this feeling, however, spring from the sphere of religion.’ Einstein, Science and Religion, Nature, 1940

‘In the beginning was the word.’ John 1, The Bible

Science and religion are married in the Genome (1)

The Bible:                 ‘In the beginning was the Word’.

21^st Century Science:  ‘In the beginning was the word’.

Science and religion are married in the Genome.

Like lovers estranged, enemies, they have hated;

boxers in corners, belligerent generals,

scrapping footsoldiers, irreconcilable -

God hunted from existence by easier truths,

squeezed from vision - unsettlingly inexact,

inhabiting feeling and imagination -

not something you can put on a slide;

prove - though love is the greatest power -

human citadel, force, undying heart flower,

yet cannot be discerned, detected, counted,

by microscope or scan - chemical or sight.

And who had made them enemies but men,

whose minds compartmentalise, reduce -

screens and firewalls of the panicked mind;

even as the heart shouts loudly in the chest,

the soul exerts its own existence, simply -

as presence; burning with their own truths,

contribution to the bigger understanding.

Even this soul man feels inside his skin -

witnessed more clearly in any eye than lens

or cell, stolen, because it has no woven fibre;

white, silken - carbon-dated to the age of God -

when maybe tools to find such energy and light,

bright root of love and consciousness, its power,

may not yet be invented, nor even yet imagined.

As the shifting Genome sparkled still, millennia

in darkness, first root of flesh, and no-one saw -

chemicals and energy; biology, light, life,

have always been the living heart of God,

Who said everything so simply;

He is Word and Life - is Love.

And all our picky labels, selective views and fights,

have never changed a molecule, a string of DNA –

a feather is neither thing of beauty, nor object of cells,

ornament or aerodynamic calculation, but all at once -

that is its glory, whole identity; reduction is not enough

to represent - picture vividly - reality’s brilliant bones -

the whole of Botany has never yet understood a flower

more perfectly than an eye, more completely than a bee.

But love of beauty grows with wonder at such structure;

processes of photosynthesis - chemicals, sugar and light,

that make the flower be, unravelling her millennia of mysteries.

Embryology is art, to be studied, like Michelangelo, enraptured.

We made this battle by ourselves - opposition, dichotomy, war -

excised the heart of science, put a stone where once passion beat;

curtailed God’s nature, meaning of His name and words -

chose ourselves what was, or was not Him, or His domain;

because we did not understand, becoming cleverer -

that big thinking, scope, perspective, grander vision,

still exist when fractured chemistry and medicine,

fabulous astronomy and physics, solve, decipher,

hook some shining elements of knowledge, 

so beautifully in symbols, theories, rules -

we are looking at a sliver cut, but a sample from one

vast picture not amenable to such selective thought -

creating partial blindness by a narrow focus - but

feeling confident to name, imprison God in words;

man-made bonds, strictures, boundaries of meaning -

thus allowing men to call the tune, re-make the dance,

that once, we realise, was free; music heard

by Earth and all her jostling creatures, even

to the last green leaf - skin molecule -

converting light, orchestrating atoms;

even if we did not recognise the notes within the tune -

understand from where such strange sound might come.

Ignorance is not bliss:

knowledge is heaven -

to read the illuminated script of a butterfly wing -

burning stripes and coals of tiger and leopard-fur;

unholy, blunt mushroom finger nudging darkness,

natural brass of the golden eagle feather - yellow

light at the sunflower’s black heart,

snow in the slow fur of Polar Bears -

is to see beauty’s shining skeleton, her plastic face -

understanding the means of stunning Earth chemistry.

The Human Genome still shines, her magic retained,

now shivering - exposed in the chill extracting palm

of science; wonder stronger, more intensified,

seeing these words revealed that are the poem

of us, of all that live upon the Earth, or ever have;

or will, in the branching future of organic family - 

Time’s hair’s-breadth splitting between water

and earth - worm, fish, mammal, flower, man.

Truth is essential to God and Science;

God and what science studies are one. 

Truth is not singular vision;

will not be encompassed -

simplified, stripped of its bigger,

closer, messier, blurred meaning -

and of all ironies, science is so far the greatest proof,

if proof be ever possible – desirable - that God exists.

Like illuminated manuscripts

Words fill us,

create, are us -

like illuminated manuscripts,

written brilliantly in time -

our detail and colour,

elaborately painted -

ornate with organic life;

gilded with some light

of different material,

decoration of spirals;

so few pages ever open -

displayed under eye-glass.

*

God is a writer -

life the printer.

‘Believe it or not, the Harry Potter stories aren’t the only highly anticipated series being published these days. On page 865 of this issue,  you can find the third instalment in another such series -  the book of human genes. This book is being produced by thousands of people around the globe.’ Nature, 2001

I am a story telling myself

I am a story telling myself.

Chapters of hand and eye,

to last syllables of hair -

reading, speaking aloud,

expressing chemicals

as iris flower, laughter

lines printing my ancient,

re-born face; figured thus

from the very start of things -

the elaborate wording of stars

blown from the mouth of God;

His ideas lurking in blackness.

*

We are books,

still opening -

being read -

and writing.

Books for others

to open, crease

and read -

understand.

‘It is these chromosomes… that contain in some kind of code-script the entire pattern of the individual’s future development and of its functioning in the mature state.’ Erwin Schrodinger, Physicist, 1943

‘The key image… is that of a species’ genes as a detailed description of the collection of environments in which its ancestors lived…The genes of a species can be thought of as a description of ancestral worlds, a ‘Genetic Book of the Dead.’ Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow, Penguin, 1998

‘The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.’ Ecclesiastes, The Bible

 ‘The genetic code was cracked in the 1960s, when Marshall Nirenberg, Har Khorana, and Severo Ochoa figured out that three letters of DNA encodes a particular amino acid. A three-letter word made of four possible letters could have more than enough permutations to encode the 20 amino acids.’ BBC Science

‘But Darwin had invented a new concept, and ‘everyone’ did not know how to read it, as metaphor or as force.’ Gillian Beer, Introduction to the Origin of Species, 1859, Oxford University Press, 1988

 ‘The genome that we decipher in this generation is but a snapshot of an ever-changing document. There is no definitive edition.’ Matt Ridley, Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Fourth Estate, 2000

Life is a script forever reading

Life is a script -

forever reading,

being read;

adapting -

revising, growing,

shifting, changing.

New lines and chapters

recited in each eye, hair,

complex interaction amid

Time’s enormous pages -

light sampled, as blood

identity, original energy,

life’s brilliant fuel

for any conversion -

sound of a heart,

sound of a wave,

written on Earth’s

stil evolving score.

One brush with a flower,

weary bumping bee fatly

transporting showered pollen

to the passing human sleeve -

altering the unseen masterwork;

sight of one unexpected bloom

might cause a man to declare his love

for a waiting woman - make children,

delete some murderous lines

in the dark chapter of a head.

Our script so linked and curlicued,

we are at dance with everything -

spoken and unspoken,

in the earthly theatre -

original arena -

restless with art;

every syllable mattering,

always work-in-progress.

We hear the page of the world

opening at our time to print -

as seeds hear spring,

light in the darkness;

fumbling earth,

water touching.

Now is the time of growth -

our own organic expression;

being a flower among flowers -

the illumination of being alive.

‘The Word became flesh…’ John 1, The Bible

The Word is the answer

The Word is the answer;

bridge, conductor, key -

between nothing

and life; invisible,

without molecule,

known dimension -

singular concept

now blossoming,

pre-rigged with being -

mysterious with matter.

Light even in darkness

glueing random atoms -

clustering the world

with chemical love.

‘Although the inherited vocabulary is simple its message is very long. Each cell in the body contains about six feet of DNA…if all the DNA in all the cells in a single human being were stretched out, it would stretch to the moon and back eight thousand times. There is now a scheme, the Human Genome Project, to read the whole of these three thousand million letters and to publish what may be the most boring book ever written.’ Steve Jones, The Language of the Genes, HarperCollins, 1993

‘When the Human Genome Project was launched in 1990, decoding the ‘book of life’ was a controversial and far-off goal. But now, with the announcement on 26 June that 90 per cent of the human genome - the ‘working draft’ - is in the public databases, the main chapters of the book have been deciphered. Not a bedtime read maybe, but the first draft of the human genome sequence gives researchers access to the most invaluable medical reference book. For the next three years, the Human Genome Project will tackle an even more challenging task - filling in the missing paragraphs and rigorously checking the spelling and grammar to produce the final ‘gold standard’ sequence.’ Wellcome Trust, UK

I am words in unformed dark

I am words in unformed dark,

my letter-flesh as yet unborn -

but my last fingernail half-moon 

already brittle; bright white fossil

scratching behind clouds of time,

like a cat at the right closed door.