Did you think you were being smart?

When you smashed my son the atom and unleashed his fury

Did you think you were coy?

When you timed the half life of radioactive particles and dated the universe’s birth

Did you think you were being good scientists when you landed on the foamy shores of quantum seas on your electron microscope boats?

Did you think?

Science… You are killing the gods

The old god of fire is nearly dead

His power over the suns burning so far away your lives will sputter and dim before you can even approach wanes and fails under your radio telescopes

The old god of water cries out as her side is pierced by your chaos equations

The god of chance screams for mercy at your probability equations

The god of creation rolls in his slumber at your proclamations of evolution and nebular hypothesis.

Science… You are killing the old gods

The gods of love and kindness scream their last breaths as Freud stamps them good and dead with his vulgar dissection of the human condition

They turn and look over their shoulders like sad parents cast away from pouting children

They catch the next bus out of town and look back at our cold logic eyes.

Lonely now we light our campfires and watch the carbon and oxygen spin off dancing.

No longer Prometheus’s gift

No longer the secret of life

Just chemistry and time