poetry notebook

Hear the woodpecker, hear the rook,

Hear the wind and the babbling brook.

That theory of a universe,

a logical extension

among others derived from

the French of Carnot, the one

that says the universe is winding

down — it’s an old man’s theory.

Were you ever young? Can you

remember rapid expansion

from the limit into no limit –

conception and birth, galaxy

formation, precipitation of stars

and planets and multitudinous

creatures creeping out of the ooze

to stand upright, use tools and

language, and copulate,

not this beleagured sense of

overdrawn accounts,

past-due potential and ossified states

where money-lenders make their grab

and you roll alone into death

with a shabby obit not noticed by any

star or kitten, only a cleanup crew,

probably underpaid, repulsed by your

stench, will curiously notice your shriveled sex

as they drop you on conveyor belts that

dump your rigor into the furnace.

You hear quotations from the Second Law,

a scripture, they say, that says all that moves

will not move and all things

will be in icy equilibrium

for all of time but shies

from the word “infinity.”

When on this fundament you posit the a priori

postulate as extending throughout all space

with nothing outside of its boundary

you assume that the limits of your senses

and extrapolation by imagination

are the limits of eternity.

Where nothing ever changes

is there time? If all things stop,

their energy dropped to zero state,

will there ever have been time?

Will there ever have been an

isolated system?

Will even we ever have existed?

Will anything we think we know

ever have actually been?