I say nothing
about how fast the light travels
or of Einstein’s problem catching up with it,
or of Ludwig Boltzmann, who killed himself
when scientists mocked his belief
in other dimensions. Today
the strings of Boltzmann’s theory
have stories to tell, they
pulsate to anyone’s rhythm.
I hold you in ten dimensions,
wish you safe in all of them.
I know space and time curl around strings
that give rise to the gravity
which holds us here, the way the notes
of Mozart’s Requiem scrolled
on his last staves. The invisible strings
in us spin themselves into specks of light,
and two new forces one strong and one weak,
draw us together. This is the complicated
shape of our time together, our past and present
woven into a fragment of the sky.
It is an elegy to you.
from Walking the Dog’s ShadowFind it in the library
Copyright © BOA Editions, Ltd 2011
Used with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc.
on behalf of BOA Editions LTD.