As Ever

Watching the water rush, but
Thinking of people tugging
Each other, as if playing

Both roles by turn—today, you
Be gravity; I’ll be stream.
Clinging surface tensions win

Concessions in shapes of waves,
But gravity, gravity,
Weak as it is, is always

Cumulative. Today, you
Be the ever-growing past,
I’ll be resistance to change.

People are like that. The fans
Of growing past think themselves
As progressing to future;

The most desperate lovers
Clinging what they know best
Imagine they serve the past.

The past is a monster, dear.
Like gravity, it seems weak,
But only accumulates.

So much talk of entropy,
Like it’s the only iron
Law in town. And gravity?

And the unrelenting growth
Of the self-editing past
Always adding, but somehow

Always managing to seem
As pleroma as ever?
Just watching the water rush.

Poems Conceal Theorems

He didn’t mean it nicely,
Bachelard. He meant, as flames
Can enchant and warp the mind,

Poems can be misleading, too,
Making smart people believe
They contain real theorems.

Well, we don’t. We’re not that smart.
Lurking in the very word,
Poetic, is the other

Word, fanciful. Deceitful,
Also, is implicit, but
Theorem is not. That word

Is supposed to cleave to truth,
Not fancy, although fancy
Theorems are sometimes wrong,

And poems are hounds for what’s wrong,
Baying and chasing wrongs down,
Then running back, tongues lolling,

Throats fluting, to their humans,
Poets disgusted with them
For rolling in theorems.

Rat and Truck

In cool, slightly smoky
Dawn in the village, think
Through the quiet between

A chip truck down the road,
A wood rat on the roof,
On how black holes are full,

Jammed, black masses, really,
Trapdoor spiders in stars,
Occupied by hunger.

The next truck down the road.
Rat scampers on the roof,
Shadow in the maples

Outside the window. Dawn
In a pretty village
With little history,

Far from the predator
That’s anchoring the heart,
Heart so big it’s gone dark.

The Weak Anthropic Principle

Everything had to be
Exactly as it was
For everything to be

Exactly as it was.
So what? From the viewpoint
Of someone anywhere

Waking up, say, somewhere
Comfortable but drab,
Safe but temporary,

And contemplating what
To do next, to keep on,
Persevere, and preserve

As long as possible
Some safety, some comfort,
No harm done to others

Or not too much, given
One never knows the harm
Incidental to acts,

To simple behaviors,
Using fuel and water,
Swerving to grab something,

Everything has to be
Exactly what just was,
And never what comes next.

You and Your Epigenetic Clocks

One speculation is that your cells
Begin to lose their identities
As you grow older and the cells age,

So the specialization that made
Heart heart, liver liver, and brain brain,
To say nothing of more precise types,

Begins to fade, and the specialized
System of specialists that is you
Begins to fade, too. Cancer’s only

The worst revolt, the cells that forget
Their identities altogether.
But everyone forgets, everyone

Demethylates, and the whole empire,
The hegemonic Pax Romana
That was you in your hip-swinging prime,

Begins to loosen, the supply chains
Sagging, more and more subsistence farms,
Fewer professional institutes.

Before barbarian prokaryotes
Swarm to vandalize the whole corpus,
You’re already starting to dissolve

Into a far more homogenous
Compost of similar eukaryotes
Retiring from the trades that raised you

Into the Colossus you once seemed.
Whether the speculation’s correct,
You always were spectacularly

Redundant, you and every other
Creature of teams. Specializations
And identities are only dreams.

Holy Half Sonnet

God, grant us a universe
Without intention, without
A grand strategy, a plan,

Or any kind of purpose,
A meaningless universe,
And we swear we’ll learn to live

With our own meaning-makings,
Our goal-orientations,
Local penalties for life.

Just let this sun on the ground
Be moving for no reason,
And we will praise you loudest,

Will do this cosmos proudest,
Who ask for nothing from you.

We Wish We Could Do That, Too

Get right next to something that’s loudly,
Actively doing nothing human,
With no loud, active humans near it—

A mountain stream if you can get one,
A rooftop cooling system maybe,
One of those hulking metal boxes,

Whirring fans and compression engines,
So long as you’re on the roof alone.
If you’re wealthy and able-bodied,

Maybe you can hike a remote cliff
Above a constantly roaring surf,
But if you’re stuck in a hostel room,

Decide which is less costly, all round,
Blasting the AC or the shower,
And then get within proximity.

Look, we know there are other issues.
Most of you live lives with most of you,
Crammed in villages or offices

Or apartment blocks or school busses.
We’re well-acquainted with hospitals,
And their relentless, slow attrition

In hives of helpless isolation.
But, if you can. If you can get right
Next to something that’s doing nothing

Human, whether human-made or not,
Just grinding along at what it does
Since all it can do is what it does,

Feel it. Let the vibrations rumble
Through you, heaped-up, multicellular
Creature you. Doesn’t it seem as if

There’s some kind of conversation there?
And yet there is no language. And yet
You give it meaning. Words envy you.