The Liberal Arts

Alicia Ostriker

In mathematics they say the most beautiful solution is the correct one 

 In physics they say everything that can happen must happen 

 In history they say the more it changes the more it is the same 

In astrophysics you take the long view 

 In chemistry you explode and blend, it is a bit like freestyle cooking, the

    Yiddish term would be: you potschke 

 In biology you smell the flowers, the enticing flowers, and you play with mice, 

    and you write grant proposals 

In jurisprudence they say there is no justice 

 In philosophy they say there is no truth 

 In literary studies they say everybody come along be ironic now 

Business school we systematize the competitive strategies we learned in the 

    sandbox 

 Engineering moves us firmly into manhood, we grip the material world in our 

    fists 

 Computer science assists us toward the goal of replacing our species with a 

 new, improved, more efficient form of life, based in electronics instead of carbon --

 many of us 

         are rushing to transform ourselves as quickly as possible 

Religion is still hot 

 People keep plunging passionately into and out of it at the usual brisk rate 

 Geography suggests the future dominance of North America by Spanish-

    speaking people 

         but it does not say when; geology looks stony, takes the long view 

Music bridges mathematics, the soul of the universe, and my personal soul 

 Visual art is the bridge between my bag of body and bones and stuff in the 

    painterly universe 

 Drama crosses this bridge on foot 

In the novel they say omit nothing, harvest the entire goddamn world 

 In memoir they say the self is silently weeping, give it a tissue 

 In poetry they say the arrow may be blown off course by storm and returned 

    by miracle