Reduct 3
Enough carbon for a myriad pencil leads, enough water
For ten gallon pails, phosphorus for fifty
Boxes of matches, enough lime for a thrifty
Gallon of whitewash, iron that ought to
Make a six-inch nail, enough sulphur to de-flea,
Enough fat for seven soap bars - all costing
A monkey (a zillion, value-added, for the frosting,
The synthesis of tissue in an analogue factory!) -
And the nature of man wide open lies!
We are such stuff as spleen is made of:
No sustaining dreams can science persuade of,
No easy insistence on a vitalist premise
To explain why the chemicals that we are made of
Flurry with the signs of life.¹ When systems
Are cut in particular ways, like gems,
They work, they reflect, they come to the aid of
Our idea of function. We share with the car
Combustion-engine styling, a self-servicing one.
We owe all to operative design, and none
To an indwelling ‘life force’. Wrecked, we are far
From denying the use and importance to a surgeon
Of regarding us mechanically. Would our awareness and choice
Speed somatic recovery, as if a fuller richer voice
Rose above the waves of blood and neuron?
Some say we are more than the sum of our parts,
That selfhood has value to give ultimate significance