Experimental Design

This tangle of Drosophila, these flies
low-orbiting your wineglass and my peach
niggle a question: whether meaning lies
only in multitudes. Is all, not each,
what matters? The arcana of creation
bloom from the totting up of tiny specks
from generation unto generation
of brief lives and uncomplicated sex.
We count them, yea, we count them. Thus, they count.
In aggregate, the little meanings chime
life’s answers; little dabs of data mount
to heaven in their millions at a time.
The new design of darkness to appall:
the data cloud, and not the sparrow’s fall.

—Maryann Corbett