Poetry by John Kirkwood

Love ... Faith ... Early Work ... The Environment ... Odds & Ends

2630 Pettit Road

Pennsauken NJ 08109 1 November 1989

 

Mr Johnathan Newcombe, President

Professional Services

Prentice-Hall

440 Sylvan Avenue

Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632

Dear Mr. Newcombe,

I recently received some cards to mail out to various publishers of text books as part of a mass mailing. I was urged to send to you a card with a preprinted message damning the teaching of any alternate thought to the theory of evolution.

Since a good theory will fit and explain most if not all of the observed data to which the theory applies, the theory of evolution does not stand up to scrutiny as even a moderately good theory. A simple example will serve to illuminate the flawed thinking patterns in the theory of accidental and chance evolution.

There is, in true science, a postulation so well founded and carefully tested that it is called the principle of entropy. This is the postulation that every complex construction or system will, if left untended, become less and less complex as time progresses. A house of cards becomes a pile, a sand castle on the shore becomes beach, not the other way around.

With this principle in mind, let us look in on the evolutionist at work in the field.

"I have in my hand a small item of flint that seems to have been created by an intelligent being. The shape of the whole is purposeful and the working of the edges shows fine evenly spaced chips producing a carefully crafted tool. The workmanship and the product was no accident. It therefore is unmistakeably of human origin. However, I conclude that accidental evolution produced the tool's human creator."

If this is the scientific thought being taught in our schools, we indeed, as the card I was asked to sign stated, "... cannot afford yet another generation of students unable to distinguish between science and dogma." whether it be the one dogmatic extreme or the other.

I personally ask you to publish ideas and inspirations that urge and entice the science student to think and discover the truth, whatever it may be. We need more young scientists who can reason from the evidence to clever flexible ideas that withstand the rigors of unbiased investigation.

We may or may not be thought of as the product of an evolutionary process. However, we are certainly no accident.

Wishing us all the very best in books,

And to you the wisdom to choose them,

 

John M. Kirkwood

Ergonomics Engineer

General Electric Co.

Down on the ocean edge

A green tide is sighing

Whispering tenderly

caressing the sand;

Shimmering, motioning,

beckoning me.

 

My thoughts are there often,

And often my heart,

There with the seagulls

whose flapping and cries

Seem to be saying

"Rejoice we are free."

The seaside is laughing

and shouting to me.

 

Flee to its heartbeat,

Bound into the sea.

joy is mine always

when there I can be.

With each cool murmur

with each subtle laugh,

The seaside is joyfully

calling to me.

The snow drifts down

On soft white feet.

Slows, then waits, still

Drifts, drifts on.

 

White sheets slanting

Across my window pane.

Halt, turn, and lightly

Drift, drift on.

 

Cold silent forms

Erase the window sill .

Stirred by winter's breath, they

Drift, drift on.

 

Falling, drifting, slanting

From heaven's heights

Fleeting frozen patterns

Drift, drift, on.

Sighing softly,

She stood,

Naked,

In the Twilight.

Her beautiful outstretched arms

Swayed gracefully, tenderly

In the caress of a soft breeze.

Snow nestled in her fingers,

Dressed her in peaceful splendor

And sparkled silently on her shoulders

In the chill of the gathering night.

I stopped and gazed in breathless awe

And time stopped with me,

Halted so that we,

The tree and I,

Might exchange our feelings thought for thought.

I watched,

Lost in an eternity,

Yet caught in the flight of time.

A sunset,

A shimmer,

A gleam, Then it's past.

A twinkle,

A glimmer,

The night's here at last.

 

A night

Like an

Inkwell

With gold dust afloat,

Or fireflies

Skimming

An old castle moat.

 

The moon

Makes its

Entrance,

A silvery glance.

A knight

In his

Armor

And preceding lance.

 

A drama

of beauty

In wonderful light.

This is

Our

Stealthy,

Awe inspiring night.

The weather seems as though

It were a curse upon the land;

Torrential rain and hail stones

Piling up on either hand.

 

The clouds are gloomy gray

And the rain comes down in sheets,

Making rushing, gushing rivers

In the gutters of the streets.

 

The torrents seem to thin.

The sky turns from gray to blue.

An awful storm is over.

The sun is breaking through.