The Lab, The World

Old man am I, harkening days of yore
Inside my brain-child lab
Within a shack by the rolling shore


The beakers would bubble with vigor and might
The equations scrawling and awry
Flowing from a graphite tip- late into each night


Add one element, then remove another
For a grasp via calculus within a roasting glass decanter


Small explosions that would singe my whitened hair
A subject volatile
Yet I would proceed for my honour- without a winkle of care


Eroded machinery- shattered particulates of glass
Ravaged the lab
Till one night I fell- defeated- completely aghast


A study of my features upon a scrap of steel
Told my story
What with scars, weathering, wounds unhealed


A toll I did pay to discover cold truth
Static and hardened
Contradicting my theories with insurmountable proof


The frosty fact follows:

For each endeavor which man decidedly pursues
Rest assured
There be not a single equation nor formula that man may use.


And so it is that I mechanically rock this chair
Walking the past
Upon my withering face and thinning white hair