"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."
-Carl Sagan


I was a strict stripling.
I stood for the stars and stripes,
Be them still or rippling.
I spoke sedulously and sparingly,
Stomaching neither stammer nor tripe.
Still, your sermon sent me shocked and staring;
A stutter I did utter.


It was a spindly, splintery ship,
And shortly it swiftly sunk;
Now I spurn what I sanctioned as bunk,
Instead I solemnize scholarship.
A star shifted to a quasar.


I've a sundry of spectacular scripts,
And strenuous schemes to satisfy.
Surely my silly stereotype was stripped;
Scientifically, I've been skeptically sanctified.
I sighed, and sin died.


I see you often. I scrutinize your sayings.
I strain and scramble,
I strive to seek your sound, sage arraying.
My sense is in shambles!
My soul, my life, is strife.


Shake! Rattle! Roll!
This I can scarcely surmise;
Those sable shadows sifted away,
But stark shrapnel survives!
How does it go, this stabbing memento?


Scathing leech;
I was sanguine 'till you spited my speech!
I've stretched my stint, I've strengthened;
So how do you sustain this singular aberration?
Tell me,
And spare me the sparring uphill.
Tell me,
When I speak of you, why do I stutter still?