Revisiting Murfin Verse—Cosmos, Consciousness, and Creator—Me! National Poetry Month 2025

 The Cosmos--vaster. more complex, and more mysterious than we imagined.

Some of the things that pop up regularly on my Facebook page are posted from Big Think which popularizes advanced scientific research and speculation for the reasonably literate lay person. Most often I glance at the summary but delve into the articles from time to time. Frankly, most sail over my head. 

Sometimes articles contradict each other as scientists advance different hypotheses. An awful lot leaves me mystified. I am no scientist, philosopher, or theologian—some of the most speculative stuff seems to demand that, too. I am a humanities major who dropped out of college and spent most of my working life as a blue collar worker, janitor, and gas station clerk—manifestly incompetent to understand much of what I read. 

But in my head I strung together a fragile paper chain from different posts unrelated to each other. Blame me, not science, by my perhaps bizarre take away. Thus. this verse.

Detail from the Fountain of Time, a monumental sculpture by Lorado Taft in Chicago's Washington Park near the University of Chicago.

 Cosmos, Consciousness, and Creator—Me!  

April 6, 2022 

Those scientists are at it again! 

According to what I read, 

        some of them think that maybe 

        the cosmos, everything, can be explained by quantum mechanics, 

        so can consciousness, 

        and everything might be 

        the creation of the consciousness 

        that observes it. 

 

That’s me, if I get this straight. 

Whew! 

 

If somehow you are reading this 

        I guess it means you too,

        but damned if I know if 

        your universe is anything like mine. 

 

It also means I am responsible for the whole shebang— 

        the Big Bang, the Milky Way sky 

        from a Montana mountain top, 

        super novas, and galaxy devouring black holes, 

        the extinction of the dinosaurs, 

        and Krakatoa East of Java. 

 

And for all the works of Shakespeare, 

        even the ones I never read, 

        the Mona Lisa and Van Gogh’s Starry Night, 

        Hieronymus Bosch, 

        your toddler’s finger paint smears. 

        Fill in the blanks for the other noble arts. 

 

Then there are the people, 

        every blesséd and blasted one of them 

        since Lucy in that African gorge, 

        all of their stories and quirks 

        from knuckle dragging hunters and gathers 

        to walking on the Moon. 

 

And if I die, which seems likely, 

        will they go pffft with me 

        or will they go on screwing and dying 

        because having set this thing a-spinning 

        it just goes on and on out of habit? 

 

All the beauty and grandeur of all those folks 

        but also the Black Death, the Inquisition,

        slavery, the Holocaust, 

        and every babe mowed down in 

        yet another school shooting. 

 

It’s all too much. 

I can’t stand it. 

Which is why I evidently invented God, 

        who I don’t really believe in at all, 

        just so I would have someone to point to and say— 

        “It’s not me, It’s him/her/they/it.” 

 

Am I off the hook? 

—Patrick Murfin