Statement on Energy Policy
By Carter Revard

It’s true we have invented quark-extraction,
and this allows our aiming gravity at will;
it’s true also that time
can now be made to flow
backward or forward by

the same process. It may be true as well that
what is happening at the focal point,
the meristem of this process,
creates a future kind of space,
a tiny universe that has

quite different rules. In this, it seems,
whatever one may choose to do or be becomes
at once the case. In short,
we have discovered heaven and
it’s in our grasp. However,

the Patent Office has not yet approved and cites
less positive aspects of this invention. First, it
does not generate profit, and
it does make obsolete all present
delivery systems for our nukes. Then,

it will let private citizens do things that only
a chosen few, that is, OUR sort, should be allowed—
fly freely from one country
to any other, spreading diseases
and bankrupting transportation.

Home-heating, auto-making industries will be trashed,
employment shelled, depressions spread worldwide,
sheer anarchy descend.
For these and other reasons,
no one must know of this. . . .

---

A Note from the Editor

75 years ago, Hungarian physical chemist Mária Telkes with American architect Eleanor Raymond designed the first solar-powered heating system for a house.
Carter Revard, “Statement on Energy Policy” from An Eagle Nation. Copyright © 1993 by Carter Revard. Reprinted by permission of University of Arizona Press.

https://us12.campaign-archive.com/?e=58c6df03ad&u=c993b88231f5f84146565840e&id=6a1bb5fab7

#poem #poetry #literature