Good morning,

My longing for the truth often finds fulfillment in the territory where art is incontrovertible, and where astronomy delivers an astonishing explanation for vast connectivity. As a student of the great mystery, I often cut my apples the "wrong way" just so that I can see the star that is revealed there in the core. Science and facts are most compelling and necessary — It is just so hard to believe that we have reached a point where we have to march in support of them! So, here are two offerings in solidarity with all those who are marching for science today.

1. As I sit writing here in my blue chair, the poet Jane Hirshfield is reading from the stage at the March for Science in Washington DC. Her poem is about Day 5 of Donald Trump's presidency and it is called On the Fifth Day. (Her most recent collection is entitled The Beauty)

On the fifth day
the scientists who studied the rivers
were forbidden to speak
or to study the rivers.

The scientists who studied the air
were told not to speak of the air,
and the ones who worked for the farmers
were silenced,
and the ones who worked for the bees.

Someone, from deep in the Badlands,
began posting facts.

The facts were told not to speak
and were taken away.
The facts, surprised to be taken, were silent.

Now it was only the rivers
that spoke of the rivers,
and only the wind that spoke of its bees,
while the unpausing factual buds of the fruit trees
continued to move toward their fruit.

The silence spoke loudly of silence,
and the rivers kept speaking,
of rivers, of boulders and air.

Bound to gravity, earless and tongueless,
the untested rivers kept speaking.

Bus drivers, shelf stockers,
code writers, machinists, accountants,
lab techs, cellists kept speaking.

They spoke, the fifth day,
of silence.

2. Click here to be inspired by Neil DeGrasse Tyson delivering an astonishing explanation for the vast connectivity we experience when we gaze heavenward. (The Most Astounding Fact from Neil DeGrasse Tyson)