Of Chemicals and Constituents…



Factus de materia cinis elementi. – “Created from the material of the ashes of the elements.”



I.) Your 92 elements to construct our natural world, your atoms are of varying radii, weights and personalities.
You are aromas, colors and textures. Molecules.

Hydrogen, hot-blooded, volatile and promiscuous, makes one bond. Carbon, cold, aloof and wary, forms four.

Iron, stern metal unbreakable except from work and weather’s wear.
Oxygen, invisible, holds us together.
O’ solvents, solutions and fumes.

Alchemy, transformed sorcery into science.
You are precious as gold; ordinary.

Who made and arranged you? God, Mendeleev or
Lavoisier puttering about his lab?
Atoms, they split, reform and substitute to find themselves.

You are fuel, our poison, our cure.
Acids, bases, distillations and titrations. Not created or destroyed and
forever conserved.

May we never know surely your endless processes.













What elements are they that Aristotle named “Earth, water, wind and fire”?
That the Chinese added to them wood and metal?
To which theologians added “life”?

What is life but a mixture of air, nutrients and water?
That the Latins called anima?
That the French called vif?

Is it all from a spirit, a soul, an earthly body or a brilliant mind?
Most importantly, does it think or does it sing?

Why do the great laws of conservation of matter and of energy
not apply to a man’s lifetime nor his body?
Truly, his bones are rented. His blood borrowed from iron in the dirt.

He seeks transmutation: transforming a foul thing into one that is glorious, but reaches it not.
Truly, gold dug from the grey earth still shines like the dawn and silk spun from a worm’s bottom is firm.

They become poisons, salts and herbs.
From wood comes fire; from a fire greatly-hot come glass vessels, from shriveled
fruit comes wine that lifts men’s’ spirits. From the cold rocks precious staffs are made- and swords.

Who did the elements assemble from clamor and could men tear them asunder or possibly make things anew?
Man took his ideas of power and purity and fashioned the Philosopher’s Stone. Formed of salt, which is earthly wisdom, lead which is earthy flesh and mercury that represents mystery.

Even as the stone transformed all it touched into pure gold; it could not make water into wine - nor wine into blood.
It could not make a criminal innocent, a man a child or a harlot virgin again.

Man threw away the stone, since it could not perfect. All who drew from the gold produced thereof, died in grief.
Amongst all alchemists was the formula lost. Beggars and noblemen would seek after it but not find.

Later, the elements found in our world summed to 92.
They were metals, liquids and airs.
Those necessary for life were called “Hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen.”

They found the earth to be made of many things, water but two of these,
Fire was pure energy and wind a light mixture.
All matter had a name and could tear apart.

Still the afterlife eludes us. Consumed with our hands, our spirit is forgotten, lying
in the earth beside that long-gone formula for transformation.

We seek stones, herbs and formulae, which lead to immortality
but as in the past, find only false gold and greed.

Men now desert their spirit to think- and to sing.
Their laws disharmonious to matter: not creating, conserving too much
or not conserving at all.

Cherishing the will of the earthly body and not the silent song within,
we guard our gold from days past and wish not to create.
The life starves, yet as we search our bodies, our minds and even the street-corners for that stone, that sweet elixir.

Because we seek our minds and bodies and no power outside the self,
we seek forever; the ends of the earth and amongst the elements
-and shall never find.

...Of Nature

Of Nature…

"Rosae morentur cum dies sed in memoriam manent."

I.) Roses will wither with the days
But in memory they shall remain.
Their scent abandons them
But in your mind, it is cherished
Once sweet, now black,
But always they will be loved.

Living vines surrender with the frost
But their touch, your hands shall not forget.
Youthful, now dead,
But folly lasts.
Fruits fall and shrivel,
But wine preserves.

Love and youth,
These things shall come to pass.
Yet forever,
Their immortality floats on the wind.
The wind is eternal,
And everything it sees.


A dozen roses had a Latin name:
Rosa Rosaceae.
From rosa prima to rosa duodecima…
By their other name, they went less sweet.
Called after their botanical genus,
they should live forever,
-and not wither.
Lest they be forgotten,
Lest their entry in old, garden books
be erased.

Lest their fragrance disappear with time.



II.) Out of their black sky,
The stars sing.

They see all but do nothing.

Unmoving lamps, ever bright,
The very eyes of God are watching.


III.) To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

- Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 and 3:11.

Top ten uses for Latin

TOP TEN VSES FOR LATIN


I. Everything sounds awesom in Latin.

II. Road-rage: Flip the bird and tell 'em to fuck-off just like the Romans did!

III. Recite it loudly at church so they think you're speaking in tonques.
NOTE: this won't work in Catholic church.

IV. Recite it loudly at Wall-Mart so they'll think you're putting a hex on them.
Gesticulate wildly and always roll your r's to make it believable.

V. Make your Mom happy by sounding "educated".

VI. You can finally say on employment applications that you are bi-lingual!

VII. Impress your doctor and/or lawyer

VIII. Ordering at restaurants, so that they give you wierd looks while trying to fetch an
interpreter for whatever language you're speaking.

IX. You'll already know what half the words in an English Dictionary mean and therefore,
will never have to read one again!

X. Si aliquid est dicere, in Latina dic! - If there's something to say, say it in everybody's favorite dead-language!