Science-Poetry

Are we equal or are we more than?

By: jonah94 (School of Chemical Eng. and Analytical Science) Competition Year: 2016 Votes (7) | Comments (0)

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Are we equal,
Or are we more than?

We speak of equations,
But all I derive are inequalities.
We speak of summation,
But every problem seems imbued with division.

Each of us are unique expressions of life,
A life made up of an infinite series of variables,
A life made up of an expansive collection of sets,
A Venn diagram of experiences and knowledge,
Both wholly unique,
And completely ubiquitous.

And yet, so quickly,
Seemingly at relativistic speeds,
We judge.
We shame.
We bias.
We hurt.

Too often separating ourselves,
Dividing ourselves into our narrowly selected subsets,
Race, gender, sexuality, class.

Too focused on the complement sets of others,
Ignoring the wealth of intersection that lies between us,
Blind to our overarching union,
Ignorant to our membership in the objective universal set.

Refusing to see each other as a whole,
We dissect our being by 360,
We narrow our focus to each varying degree,
To each 0.0175 radians of difference.

Prejudice – a seemingly omnipresent entity,
The background radiation of our social universe,
It penetrates all in its wake.
And a love for science and maths, not withholding,
It pervades this gracious edifice too.

To those aware,
It screeches with amplitudes in excess of 150 dB,
Sound waves so strong – if, you can hear them.

Perhaps we’re all mostly deaf,
Perhaps we do not hear because we cannot hear,
Perhaps prejudice with its inaudible yells,
It’s 20.1kHz frequency of noise,
Is simply out of range to most.