We see force
In a fallen staircase,
In empty space.
We see force
Where things end,
What they did,
Closing note of an
operatic skid.
We see tragedy
Or escape or mass
Succumbed to entropy,
Events slowed, locked.
What we miss:
Insubstantial stuff
Floating over shock,
Salsify, dandelion fluff,
Ideas where drama
Stops --nor do lives
Grow only to
Their tops-- launch
Above what we do.
A sob or kiss, enlarged
By love, assumes force.
In time we see this too.
_________________
*force=mass x acceleration, Newton's 2nd law of motion.
I've been away and so maybe I'm not entirely grounded yet. I love this poem, especially since it came out on what I still like to call St. Valentine's Day. (Is he more fictitious than any of the others? I think not.) But I haven't parsed the title "F=MxA*" yet, so maybe you can drop a hint that I missed....
ReplyDeleteWelcome back Willie!
ReplyDeleteAs footnoted under, poem uses Newton's law --from which we derive matter/energy conservation in a closed system-- as analog for human experience, feelings. It leads to thermodynamic framework of some states of matter transforming into others less organized. One result, fusion, seems to reverse the entropic arrow of time and generate anomalous energy --I assign that value to love.
Geo.