“Shut up and Calculate”

Stop calculating and think. Some of us
Don’t work well with mirrors. Some of us can’t
Tolerate symmetrical reflection,
Can only waver continuously
Outward and ongoing without being
Outgoing, because being outgoing,
Whether socially or reflectively,
Entails increasingly exact returns,
As the light bouncing back from silvered glass,
The light interacting with self-regard,
The self-regard interacting with talk,
Manners, notions, pretended positions,
Self portraits of increasing precision,
Retrospectively makes us sick. Stop. Stop.

Think of what you’re doing to the cosmos,
You, human, peculiarly curious
Aspect of it. You are it, reflecting
On it, interacting with it, ruthless
And calculating. Maybe this cosmos
Doesn’t want to know what it’s really like,
Who it really is. Stop figuring it.
Stop up your radio telescope’s ears.
Close your eyes and put away your lenses.
Just the thought of the flaws your equations
Must eventually discover in it
Is enough to make this universe sick.
Stop triangulating the face of God.
Oh, let us expand without measurement.