The Professors New Science Project

The Professor's New Science Project I don't just want to pass you by, Or leave behind a bit of tail And a story all about someday I'm coming back this way again, Or linger sometime in your orbit And crash into oblivion. I want to make a real soft landing, Coming in on thrust just right. I want to get inside your belt And feel your magnetism hold me And shield me from the universe With that warm blanket of your aura, The lines of force that follow you, Because the universe itself Is out to get me, burn me down Right to my ancient bones. It's throwing everything it's got Right at me every day, all day, From every possible direction. It's cancer, tyranny and tragedy, The broadcast waves of war and death, Poverty and devastation, And it won't let me sleep at night. And I've been sucking bitter vacuum So long I've lost count of the stars Who've mocked me for millenia. I'm tired of cosmic irony. I need to break that symmetry That traps me in what I have been And find new ways of opening The fabric that keeps us apart. I don't just want to dance with you Or reach out for the cold, cold moon, To prove some point about what I Can do. I want to have it matter. I want to risk my life to get you But not just to compete for you And be the clean cut, smiling hero. I don't want it to be some image Of someone's simple formula. I want philosophy and truth. I want justice as a precondition Of our existence. I want love. I want biology and chemistry. I want more than chemistry. I want to get really physical. I want to feel my subatomic parts

Line up and spin in harmony, Up and down, in every color, And strangely, all my forces unified As all my strings weave into yours And jump your quanta constantly. And though the universe is running down And will eventually stop, I want to let you show me new dimensions Outside the limits of perception, And what there was before time was And what there will be when it's gone. I want to breathe the atmosphere That circulates around your body And find the molten core of you. I want to stay there till my poles Which now freeze in the naked dark, The emptiness of solitude, Follow the changes in your heart, And melt into your tropic floods. It's like I want to help you save The planet, and it's like you are Planet that I want to save. I want to protect your wetlands And all of your wild places, And let them grow even wilder Than anything you've known before. I want to get into your biosphere And increase your biodiversity. I want to develop my ability To live in harmony with you, And your ability to live In harmony with Man, which In this case would be me. You see, I want something sustainable And always changing and evolving, Making the best of everything. You make me feel there just may be A future after this short life, Like it might be worthwhile To plan on future generations If they look something like you do, And like I want to plow your garden And be the bee to pollinate Your flower. We could do research And put some superconducting supercolliding In the picture here in Texas at last. God knows I've waited for it. To me, you feel like natural Selection, like my lucky streak

Might almost have been real, And not just my heuristic mind With its suboptimal routines Telling me lies about statistics, Like it brought me this improbable Angel, with her astral smile Inviting me to learn to wrestle, To find that we can fly together Into the sunrise, Spring and Heaven, Like binary stars, like primal twins, Always beginning the creation, Again, again, again and again, Sublime companions in extasy, Travelers across the universe And all the alternate universes, Above all laws that slow us down, Never aging, faster than light.