This is a poem I wrote after reading the book shown above. I will post a review soon, but I really enjoyed it. I got it for my dad for Father’s day and we read it together.
A Tale of Universal Relativity
Can we, through the subtleties of poetry
discover the secrets of the universe?
of who we are and why we exist
if we even exist at all
If we look to the implications of modern physics
it seems to say that only nothing is real
that nothing
is real
that we live in an observer-dependent reality
negating the idea of of a True reality outside of us
not that we can’t observe it
but that it cannot exist
Who are we in the world of nothing
what then of our experiences
of life
of love
of hurt
and pain
and longing
and grief
of fear
and death
Is there a purpose behind the world of illusions
the world as we know it
according to each of us
There must be some sort of overlap
so that we can share a sense of understanding
of love
Maybe our emotions
or love
as Maya Angelou said
is what holds the stars in the sky
Maybe the world will end in fire
or possibly in ice
in the words of Robert Frost
Or maybe it will not end at all
if it never began
if it always has
and always will
exist
And what of life
and of consciousness
and sleep
and dreams
I go to sleep at night, or sometimes day
and visit a different world
one very different, it seems, from the one I usually see
where things seems to overlap
boundaries are non-existent
and nothing is distinct
a fluid universe of probabilities
only vaguely remembered upon waking
I try to create a story
out of the fragments of my memory
the fragments of my fading dreams
We start out as a mixture of DNA
a blueprint for a being
encoded in strings of molecules
giving birth to a cell
which grows to form a baby
who is born into this strange evanescent world
where we learn of love
of hate
of pain
and hurt
but also of joy
and empathy
we have experiences
interpret them
allow them to shape our world
Once upon a time
my mom told me
she thought she was an alien
I have often felt that way myself
as if I am an observer
learning human ways
And maybe that’s true
that we are all observers
observing the worlds
of everyone around us
It has sometimes been hard to tell the difference
between my dreams and this reality
I seem to have a memory
sometime when I was small
of there being a wall inside of our apartment
just high enough to reach the windows
of course I know
it was never there
but the memory is so clear
and maybe it was there
an internal wall
built around me
that only I could see
My childhood memories are vague
my memories in pieces
shards whose edges have been rounded by time
or is it distance whose disappearance
causes its velocity to be undefined
I look at the child I used to be
all those years ago
now as an observer
an impossibility
my memories shaped
by the person I have become
the one I seem to look at
being somewhat different
from the me I was then
the me that I felt
from the inside
We live our lives from the inside
with only occasional glimpses from others
who have a more objective view
we are only ever able to approximate how we seem to others
interpreted back to us
through their eyes
their perspectives
their biases
because maybe
there is no ultimately objective view
and due to incompleteness
we cannot measure ourselves
but only know ourselves
as completely as possible
from the inside
Some may call this intuition
some of us are good at following it
some of us have yet to listen
There was a time when it saved my mother’s life
she had a feeling and decided to listen
unable to explain why
until we made it home
to find the window shattered
a bullet hole in the wall
She told me stories of how she left her body
saw it lying there on the bed
and how if someone had tried to wake her
she would not have been able to get back in
There was the time she found her grandmother
knocking at her door
coming to see the baby
born the day she died
fulfilling her earthly promise
to tell her granddaughter
what death was like
and restore the baby’s health
for whom no earthly treatment could cure
I was afraid for her before it happened
I could see the signs
She told me to trust her
she knew how to handle it
And I suppose
since she was the adult
I listened
but I was still scared
I was sure he had tried to kill her once before
and was just waiting
for another opportunity
It came a few days later
a week maybe
and I knew
when she didn’t come home that night
when I didn’t sleep waiting for the sound of the gate
but knowing every time
that it wasn’t her
she would not come
The next day at the police station
they did not take us seriously
said maybe she just left
I told them they didn’t know her
they said there was nothing they could do
I knew I had to find her
had to go back to that apartment
find out if the neighbors heard something
My brother went, since he had not been
but I found that I
could not sit idly by and wait
so I put on a disguise, changed my clothes, my hair
and went to join him
in our little escapade
a ruse to get inside
we knocked on every door
to no avail
no one wanted to talk to strangers
no one would come to their door
not until after we broke down the door
and found out what I had known all along
somehow now they opened their doors
for us to call 911
I remember the first few words of a note he left
I was not allowed to see the rest
I remember being afraid
that he would come after us too
they found him after a week
as he was about to be released
from the hospital after claiming to be hearing voices
Once upon a time
I kept my secrets to myself
kept my heart locked in a castle
only rarely allowing entry
to those I had given a key
never allowing them to see me
barely daring to enter myself
But maybe sometimes
it’s okay to open the door
to show you around
maybe it doesn’t have to be
a pandora’s box
where hope is the only thing
that cannot escape
As Emily Dickenson says
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops – at all
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