Sensate 

Norman Miller

I sense now that everything, every thing, senses. 
Steel pans searing meat howl with animal ghosts,
fuelled by electrons force-marched in circuits,
heat energy working through their hard problem.  

Keels shiver in terror of ceaseless waterboarding,
ducked at birth, forced to bear mariners off land 
where tyres foment mad revolutions on tarmac,
asphyxiated by their own dead weight.

Wind keens with strange pleasure, isobars 
tightening a grip, choking the atoms of air
through which raindrops shriek in downfall, 
like 9/11 leapers breaking free from sky towers.

Trees mimic Trotsky, sap spurting 
as fissures quake to the axe, 
and the skulls of nails fracture
at the hammer test of mettle.

Even galaxies tremble, turning and turning 
in voids where fragile stars reflect on
those silences shared by each that senses,
shushed between prayer and catatonia.

The Science

In a 2020 interview with Scientific American, philosopher Philip Goff discussed the idea of panpsychism -  that perhaps a form of consciousness is inherent to all matter. The idea has been spotlit in other pieces since, such as this 2022 feature in Space.com and 2022 feature in New Scientist. Panpsychism doesn't suggest that literally everything is conscious in terms of being self-aware, but that everything – even sub-atomic particles – may 'experience' its place in the universe. My poem is an effort to consider that in the language of senses and experience. 

The Poet

Norman Miller is a UK-based writer. He has published both short stories and non-fiction, and had several of his plays performed professionally. His poetry has been published in both print and online outlets, including a previous poem for Consilience ('Shadowlands') written under the pseudonym Linsey Andrews.

Next poem: Stigmergy by Ruth Aylett