The Cyclist in the Apple Tree

Cornelis Corneliszoon van Haarlem, The Fall of Ixion (ca. 1588). Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

“Lucretius could not credit centaurs:

Such bicycle he deemed asynchronous.”

— William Empson, “Invitation to Juno.”

The yellow-bellied sapsucker

in the apple tree might conceivably

be me. AI’s oxymoronic science's*

relentless pecking fills the world.

Grab an umbrella, but keep it furled

—even rain now makes no sense!

The cyclist embedded in this wood

sought symbiosis, as he should, but

"Ixion rides upon a single wheel.”**

Seek an answer, cop a feel—

to countless nothings lately flew

the many arts that Tully knew.***

* Cf. Ignorance Unmasked: Essays in the New Science of Agnotology, ed. Robert N. Proctor and Londa Schiebinger (Stanford University Press, 2025).

 ** Empson, ibid. Ixion, king of the Lapiths, sought to seduce Hera (aka Juno), wife of Zeus, who, however, substituted a cloud for her. From that copulation the half-horse, half-human race of Centaurs was born. Ixion was condemned in punishment to be bound to an eternally spinning wheel of fire. The first-century BCE Roman poet-philosopher Lucretius questions this tale, inter alia, in his De rerum natura [On the Nature of Things].

 *** Marcus Tullius Cicero, De senectute [On Old Age], 78: “Tot artes tantæ scientiæ.”

Tueday, December 1, 2025