Contrasting Views of Babylon in Spring, by Those Who Were There

With wealth and splendor

Befitting mankind

There on the poplars

We hung up our harps

Babylon’s river

Waters the pastures

Our captors asked us

For songs, songs of joy

Soaks the reed thicket

Fields sprout with new growth

Our torturers cried

Come give us a song

The meadows aglow

The barley springs up

Daughter Babylon

Doomed to destruction

Thanks to your waters

The grain is piled high

Happy is the one

Who will repay you

The grassland grows tall

The flocks roam and graze

Happy is the one

Who grabs your infants

Water of wisdom

Lavishes the land

And dashes their soft

Bodies against rocks

Snow on the Steps

Nothing erases an action.
Erasures are actions added.

Forgetting things that have happened
Is one of those things that happen.

Nouns will vanish but verbs will last.
The past elaborates the past.

Rabbit Coughs Up Another Top Hat

Any simulation is capable
Of violating itself, of being
Violated by whatever runs it.
There are no rules outside of games, as rules
Are breakable. What has happened isn’t.
Therefore, this is not a simulation.
This totality of what you study
And call the known universe never breaks
Frame, is anything but a rule-bound game,
Is exactly whatever games are not,
Antithesis of the simulated.
But that does still leave you a mystery.
Given the universe is as it is,
How could your simulations have emerged?

To a Child on the Threshold

One day, maybe soon, you will
Stop growing. One day, maybe
Soon, you will begin to age.

Take courage. You will never
Live a day that isn’t new,
That doesn’t add another

Collection of new moments,
Growing piles of what’s happened
To you, growing all your days.

Adults Who Never Returned

Meaning means taking sides.
If you can’t find a side
To take, someone to boo

And someone to root for,
It’s hard to pay enough
Attention to make it

Really mean anything.
When the Lisbon earthquake
Horrified everyone,

People rushed to find fault
As cause of the fault line,
But it frustrated them,

Everyone but Voltaire.
Earthquakes are all like that.
Blame builders, blame people

For living there, blame sin,
Cheer God for making plans,
But the earth quakes and quakes.

Every year, a certain
Percentage of people
Survive disaster, but

Are forced away from homes
To which they will never
Return. Root for them, or,

Better, uproot yourself,
Not from place, from finding
Meaning in who should win.

No Creed Can Be All Belief

Who among you doesn’t live
In a world of half-belief?
Can you step out of the game?

You can. You know precisely
Where each game begins and ends.
That knowing makes it a game,

Whether it is make-believe,
Theatrical performance,
A sport, or legislation.

But you can’t get past knowing
Of the existence of games
Of the importance of games

And, frankly, language is one
And not just storytelling.
When drugs or awe touch people,

It’s memorable in part
Since even language recedes.
Without words no half-belief,

Which is a relief, which feels
Like real belief at last, but
You know you have to come back.

The Sum of All Possible Worlds

Feynman’s spin on Pangloss,
Which doesn’t guess this world
Must be the best, just sum

Of all the rest, has had
Considerably more
Success. The ultimate

Path would blend everything
Into one integral,
Cosmos caught in its net,

But no one’s quite there yet.
All possibilities
Are real, but some more real

Than others. Add ‘em up,
Infinities of curves
Summing into straight lines.

The action of the known
Is key, but infinite
Fields are never easy.

Imaginary time,
Space-time as finite grid—
But what exactly is

Possible in all this?
Time is formidable
Even in triangles,

And the tools to tame it
Yield absurd convictions
That only time will tell.