We’ve got our hands on the plans – DNA
and RNA, histones and all the rest,
but we don’t see where our folly nestles,
how it is built so deeply in that what
We do with what we think we know in this
golden age of exploration is bound
to be clumsy, insensitive and blind,
so that when we wake from this spell our shame
Won’t be enough to guide us in how to
regret, repent, seek to atone, restore
what we have disturbed, rescue what we’ve bent:
future presence of mind is hard to find
Our hands on the plans repeat old troubles,
We become our own serpentine doubles