Righteous Things

Arthur Stewart

Life flows up from life—
a thin sweet sap, frothing
at the edges. Always

the roots of the thing
ease down; grope through dark soil,
binding and bringing in

water, iron, phosphorus, nitrogen,
desire. These small things get mixed
in particular ways; they get worked

uphill to build
new things, make new life.

Do this by yourself:
take one deep red rose
on a short stem

to the gravesite. Place it there
at an acute angle, alone.
For Mattie,

a wonderful dog. He was
respectful, kind, and
honor-worthy.

He made the world
smoother by living.

Go on a slow
walkabout at a young age: say,
16 years or so; the purported purpose

then less than crystal—
the actual purpose
may not be known for years.

There’s time then to make change,
time
to adjust direction. You can veer

to the south—keep the rising sun
on your left as you travel and imagine
how a young bird knows without knowing

when and how to migrate.
Imagine
how generations of Monarchs

know without knowing
when to move north and lay eggs
on milkweed leaves. The eggs

hatch to larvae, which then change
by chrysalis into butterflies
that know without knowing.

But the last ones know
when to flutter south
over 2,000 ragged miles

to overwinter on trees
in a forest
in central Mexico.

From tension comes stress
and from stress, chaos.
Envision a teapot—one that whistles

sharp as a nail when the heat’s on
and the pressure’s up.

It is difficult to learn
all the laws that pertain
to righteous things. Are we free

from moral defect? Are we
virtuous, worthy, and just?
If we do righteous things

do we make the world better?
Does it matter?

Motion results from an upset in stasis,
from a change
in equilibrium. If I drive

carefully at night, not changing
my speed, things passing by let me know—
something’s in motion.

Honestly,
are you honest? Are you

courageous, generous, and fair
even when you don’t want to be?

Have you ever cheated
at solitaire? Did you kick

the tires before buying the car?

In late autumn even the birds
have troubles: they squabble
over the last seeds

in the birdfeeder and they shoulder
their ilk at the suet feeder
hung by a wire to the trunk

of a loblolly pine. Yes, the name
rolls from the tongue, a rich
lather of sound: like leatherleaf.

But the birds don’t say it.
And they may not think it.
Being virtuous is difficult.

We do it
knowingly now and then and we pat
ourselves on the back when we do.

The Science

‘Righteous Things’ explores, from a scientist’s perspective, the boundary between how one thinks about the self, versus how one thinks about science. Edges always are fraught with entropy, uncertainty, and at some scale, ambiguity. Carve it away slowly to sharpen the focus - an attempt to clarify the edges of what we know – and suddenly we find that science (the study of life, in this case) and the understanding of self-fuse to uncertainty. In a sense, entropy wins. We cannot separate ourselves from what we are.

The Poet

Arthur Stewart’s poems have been published in more than a dozen national and regional poetry anthologies and in various literary and scientific magazines, including Rattle, Journal of the American Medical Association, Lullwater Review, Big Muddy, New Millennium Writings, Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, and Chemical & Engineering News. He was a 1997 Tennessee Poetry Prize winner, a 2009 winner of the Wilma Dykeman Prize for essay writing, and a 2013 inductee into the East Tennessee Writers' Hall of Fame for poetry. He lives in Lenoir City, Tennessee.

Next poem: Snowflake by Jonathan Kane