Elizabeth N. Barr

The High Winds of Home and Other Poems

Alchemy

I watched a chemist mooning o'er his task
Sifting the elements of stars aha suns,
At night with pious care he set them down
His sums of gases, solids, miles and tons.

I took his test tubes and his crucibles,
And there until the red dawn I stood,
Smelting up God to analyze his parts,
And lo, I found him neither bad nor good!