to burn through the mist of ignorance

the clarity of an oracle

I avoid instruction manuals,

I find them obfuscatory and obtuse,

I tire quickly when reading the rules of a game

for rules are like a skeleton:

they give structure but lack spark, adventure, life,

yet what is science

but the look for the blueprint, the rules,

the “why” behind the “what,”
the “how” within the “is”?

and I love science,

I love the clarity 

when the simplicity of answers

burns through the mist of our ignorance,

when the oracles speak not in riddle

and instead let us see an expanding truth,

how hard it is to be open

both to what comforts us

and to what challenges

how we’d like it all to be.

by Henry H. Walker

March 7, ’14