Classic Poem

As for the Past, it ap-
pertains to Gravity; in-
deed, Gravity permits
not only a Past but
a Now to exist (if
but for an instant) since
Light elsewise would be free
absolutely, would never hit
anything that could say " Now "
back to it because
there wouldn't be anything. How-
ever, as things are, if we
could go backward in time
we'd encounter a universe
smaller at each step until
at the last inch the whole
cosmos would implode onto
and mash us into one-millionths
of a quark — into " gravitons " —
as the Great Bang happened
in reverse . . . .
So we can say

Gravity is the Past
pulling on us, even as Light
rebuts it and hauls us tomorrow-ward.

The problem (for us) consists
in applying the principle
to the details: electron and proton;
atom and man; man and man;
man and woman. Expertly done,
it might explain errors made
over and over; how history
is a scroll of imperfect solutions
to an expanding antinomy; per-
haps, even, how sweet things —
for instance the bliss of re-
ciprocal love — can make us
merry and yet grave so
that half the time we are laughing
at our own tears . . . . (How else
would the Past belong to the old
and the Future to the young — such
that, between them, Now per-
petually annihilates itself?)











By permission of the author.