Basic Units Of Science

When I said I weighed seventy kilos I didn’t bother I weighed seventy times The weight of an alloy cylinder Made of platinum and iridium Preserved near Paris at Sevres To it the physicist so far clung When he measured the weight of things Like a life-boat on choppy seas And alas today he is dismayed The thing at Sevres can no more be guide Everything is subject to change Environment and wear and tear Presided over by tyrant time The cylinder sure has lost some weight Despite careful handling strict The need of the hour, nay minute Is therefore to redefine weight How can that be ever done If we are to design matter alone When change through time afflicts Everything at every place? An insurmountable conundrum indeed Over-awed brains are losing sleep “We have no problem” someone quipped 'With distance, say a meter, as it is Measured against the speed of light A natural constant without change Unlike the sanctified alloy piece” He didn’t bother the pace of light Is reckoned against plaguing time Whose unit the second derives Sustenance from matter atomic Of a particular type In a particular state In transition betwixt Two levels hyperfine Back to square one that is A vicious circle indeed! How could one ever rely On matter alone to define The basic units of science? Caught we are in a flux Trying to make sense Lost like a ship in mid-seas With no land or star in sight Yet so sure are we That we are right To think that light escapes The tyranny of time and change Unaware of the Light that shines Light and the constructs of space and time