Picture this, this Alchemical Experimentalist:
He does what he does with available ingredients,
all smiles, a chef at his concoction,
sets the fuse, and Gosh Almighty! That’s a really Big Bang.
Time scales vary, but may be imagined.
He falls back, startled. Perhaps
he is too young to be aware of what he has started.
New at this he sits on the floor, fascinated,
watches the primordial cloud expand,
filling space above his workbench;
he realizes now there were defects in the material
he had utilized, that as a result
the expansion is far from perfect.
Small areas coalesce, one particle drawn to its neighbor;
Others spread out. It is almost arbitrary.
He thinks, “There is something I should have added that I didn’t.”
Changes occur quickly. At the edges, with a rapidity
he had not expected, it is almost too difficult to discern them.
So now the door opens, and he wants to be somewhere else,
in the broom closet, for example, or back in the attic room where he sleeps.
It is the Boss, who looks at the mess,
scowls at his Apprentice.
“Fucked up again, huh! Well, clean the place.
Wash it down. One more like that
and you repeat the semester.