Tinier Even Than Science

Still among the myriad microwaves, the
infra-red messages, the gigabytes of ones
and zeroes, we find words, infinitesimally
small, byte-sized now, tinier even than
science lurking in some vague electricity
where, if we listen we can hear the solitary
voice of that poet telling us,

"We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the show."

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on:  nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it."

"Yesterday This Day's Madness did prepare;
Tomorrow's Silence, Triumph or Despair:
Drink!  for you know not whence you came, nor why:
Drink!  for you know not why you go, nor where."

-- Irma St Paule (1926 - 2007), as "Poet" in the movie Twelve Monkeys (1995), quoting Omar Khayyam's The Rubaiyat (1120), stanzas LXVII, LXXI, and LXXIV