When I was seven, 

I stumbled downstairs in the middle of the night to show my mother what I had been reading; 

An encyclopaedia entry on the atomic model

What I felt looking at those pages was almost worship

The notion that everything in the universe could be described and explained moved me so much I felt compelled to share it, 

Even on pain of punishment for reading past my bedtime. 

 

That faith in facts, in certainty, in reason, in life as input to process to product, stuck with me well past the shock decision for me to become an artist.

 

At fifteen, a latecomer by any standard, I discovered a talent for piano

The domain of art is often considered vague, uncertain, even esoteric, 

But my teenage self never saw it as such

The child that once tinkered with chemistry sets now tinkered with counterpoint

To me they were one and the same; 

 

Sodium hydroxide reacts with hydrochloric acid to produce sodium chloride and water, 

Cadencing in the third species of Fuxian counterpoint requires raising both the sixth and seventh scale degrees of certain modes to ensure proper leading tone function to the tonic.

 

This is right.

This is good.

This is correct.

 

I took on art as absolute, with the same certainty I had believed in science. 

 

And so,

 

At twenty, at night, when the breath grew tight in my chest and the room started to spin, long before the words anxiety or autism were given to me, I wondered; 

What method here would be correct? How do I cadence this? 

 

All at once, at twenty-three, the answer came to me, 

After straining to stay a secret.

Composing, when a piece dug its heels and described to me the truth;

I was wrong.

I discovered that to make was not really to create but to excavate, to dig; discover not design. 

A kind of trust came forward, and the piece yielded.

 

What I had really learned was this;

Matters of the heart are not healed by the head

Thinking thoughts will not save a soul

And that the heart, though it simply feels, knows things too.

 

This new world revealed itself slowly, gentle as a sunrise. 

Where I was taught with certainty, I learned with trust,

A man of science found a faith (of sorts),

And saw paradox break bread with peace; 

Calm, chaos, contradiction, all uncertain quantum states in my own atomic model.

 

Now, at twenty-seven, I stand happily corrected.

Encyclopaedia entries are still fascinating, but I know, or feel, or both, 

That science does not bring salvation.

Life’s meaning is revealed only ever in part; a laugh, a sigh, a song, a tear

An upright ape, staring at the stars, mouth agape 

with wonder

Knowing, 

with the last shred of that same certainty I once held so dear, 

that I can never 

know 

it all.