When I was young,
I loved to disassemble things
motors, radios
anything mechanical,
but my passion – was for watches.
Whenever some
broken timepiece came my way
I would clear off my desk
remove the watch’s backplate
and marvel at its complexity.
Contemplate the three or four screws
which held it all together
and then – with trembling hands
remove them
and cover my desk
with gears and ratchets and springs.
But I could never
put them back together again.
In high school
my biology teacher anesthetized a frog
in a bell jar, with cotton wool and ether
and when its frantic hopping ceased
pithed and pinned it down
in the dissection tray
splayed and still
flayed it layer by layer
disemboweled it – carefully,
so we could watch its heart beat.
Somewhere in his lecture
the frog surrendered.
While he spoke
of veins and arteries and skin and bone
something disappeared
was lost to observation
and as he marveled
at the miracle of life – I thought
“That’s neat,
but the frog’s dead.”
So, before you deconstruct – me
listen:
We were never meant
to be dissected
that’s why the frog died
and to say the human soul
is pithed – feels no pain
as you tear it apart –
is the arrogance of the anatomist,
reeks of vivisection.
We are more than the juxtaposition
of the bits and pieces of our lives.
You cannot disassemble a human life
except, as with the frog,
you must sever some vital cord
let slip that essence which derives
from the integrity of the whole
from the infinite moments
of the life as it is lived
with changes of heart
and that constant review
of past and present
which is the human part of us.
So go play the reductionist
with your own life.