Tonight, I going to see a production of Peter Pan with my daughter. It's the last in the local college's theater season. She's looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to possibly seeing somebody fly into a wall by mistake. It's going to be a good night.
This morning, I was listening to the radio, and I heard a discussion of string theory. It so struck me, the inter-connectedness of the universe, that I had to write about it. I mean, I've heard it said that actions vibrate through history. Until today, I had given it very little thought, especially when it comes to poetry. The idea, however, that each poem that's written in the world is just an extension of one, long, universal poem really appeals to me.
So Saint Marty presents a lesson in poetic string theory.
Psalm 39: String Theory and the Book of Psalms
I heard on the radio we're not alone,
Not beings with independent atom,
Nucleus, DNA, hemoglobin, muscle,
Bone, skin. Strings connect me to my wife,
Daughter, son, brothers and sisters,
Parents, kindergarten teacher, Brit Lit
Professor, Wordsworth, Julius Caesar,
Cleopatra, Herod, John the Baptist,
Jesus, Isaiah, Solomon, King David.
David, gazing at Bathsheba's arms,
Legs, breasts under desert sun,
Vibrates in the filaments of my bed
As I fall into my wife, lose myself
In the Jerusalem of her body,
Each of these words I write now,
Just extensions, continuums,
Revisions of David's songs, verses,
The way Whitman wrote, rewrote
Leaves of Grass, added, subtracted,
Refined until the day he breathed
His last breath. Walt, David, and I
Dance naked in a cornfield,
Our joy a ticker tape parade through time,
One long poem of lament, of praise
To God, filtering through the air,
Like rain on Easter, full of music, promise.
A little strong theory humor!
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