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The Sciences Sing a Lullabye by Albert Goldbarth

The Sciences Sing a Lullabye
Albert Goldbarth

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you’re tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

MARGINALIA

Sleep. Sleep! I feel like I’ve just discovered it, and it’s the most wonderful thing in the world. The universe, even.

ABOUT ALBERT GOLDBARTH

Albert Goldbarth was born in Chicago on January 31, 1948. Within a year, Goldbarth received the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize, published the chapbook Under Cover, and completed two full-length poetry collections: Coprolites (New Rivers Press) and Opticks (Seven Woods Press), both published in 1974. Since then, Goldbarth has published more than twenty-five collections of poetry, including To Be Read in 500 Years: Poems (Graywolf Press, 2009); The Kitchen Sink: New and… (more)

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