[800] In the Microscope

Guest poem submitted by Vivian Eden, <vivian@>, as part of the
_poems by scientists about science_ theme:

Here too are the dreaming landscapes,
lunar, derelict.
Here too are the masses,
tillers of the soil.
And cells, fighters
who lay down their lives for a song.

Here too are cemeteries,
fame and snow.
And I hear the murmuring,
the revolt of immense estates.

	-- Miroslav Holub

Translated into English from Czech by Ian Milner, in Miroslav Holub, "Poems
before & After," Bloodaxe Books, 1990. In line five, I do not know whether
the Czech word translated here as "cells" also has a political meaning; in
any case, it works in English. For more about Miroslav Holub see
www.complete-review.com/authors/holubm.htm

This poem, I think, perfectly expresses the poetry of science. Czech poet
Miroslav Holub (1923-1998) was an immunologist by profession and a poet by
calling. "In the Microscope" demonstrates how the poet's eye is like the
scientist's eye and how the entire cosmos can be found in a smudge of
something-or-other on a microscope slide. Throughout, but particularly in
the last two lines, the poem "yokes" scientific man, political man and
poetic man to this smudge, which is a thing of beauty and terror. I imagine
anyone who has ever looked through a microscope must have felt this, but I
know of no one who has expressed it so well.

Vivian.

From: "Gwilym Williams" <gwil@>

A wonderful Miroslav Holub poem is The Fly. The fly meditates on the
immortality of flies before being eaten by a swift.