The Science Ladies

The Science Ladies

Weariness, soon to be picked up anew
there was the Spaniard
and he told a tale of blood anew.

"No more fictitious words
no more underhanded tactics done up..."

The words were spoken seriously to him
but the words are spoken as if forced
and Mary turned out to be a man.

She said that she was really burned out
so seductive and strange.
He said "Where is the man with the preludes?"
The Science Ladies
inhabiting the length of soul.

The grey things
inhabiting the
where the lumber was kept.
Particles that were stinging my lungs.
The godly seal, the grey seal, will dissolve.
400 years, 800 years of slavery.

She showed me where I had to go
told me what I had to know.
And as she told me
the land was being pelted with snow.

Answers like seeds being dispersed into the breeze.
The Science Ladies
wandering inside my soul.

She stood there
with a handful of gleaming seeds.
She opened her eyes to me.
We stood on the marsh of reeds
the understanding of the ages
would grow in my mind from this point in my childhood.
The Science Ladies
inhabiting the length of soul.

-Will Dockery (1982)