blue slowly overcomes the gray, the morning birds sounding
songs from branches camouflaged by leaves emerging
out of night’s sharp darkness into view as green and lustrous, moving
lightly in dawn’s cool breeze. the cyclist speeds through intersections,
ignoring stop signs and watching out for early motorists doing the same.
the air smells in pockets of lilac, tobacco, coffee and bacon.
booted cats are crossing streets, heading home for breakfast.
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
the universe
the whole shebang
the this, the that, & the other thing
the quarks, the clusters of galaxies
the songbirds descended from t. rex
the people descended from god knows where
the rocks sufficient as ever unto themselves
the vascular plants, the molds and fungi
the black holes, the white dwarves
the dark matter & the centers of stars
that which transcends all that a monkey could know
& that which substantiates the dance of the atomic apparitions
an incredible act of courage & joy
that there should be anything at all
& more than that, all that there is
(Copyright 2023 by Tetman Callis.)
“What we mean by ‘right now’ is a mysterious thing which we cannot define and we cannot affect, but it can affect us later, or we could have affected it if we had done something far enough in the past. When we look at the star Alpha Centauri, we see it as it was four years ago; we might wonder what it is like ‘now.’ ‘Now’ means at the same time from our special coordinate system. We can only see Alpha Centauri by the light that has come from our past, up to four years ago, but we do not know what it is doing ‘now’; it will take four years before what it is doing ‘now’ can affect us. Alpha Centauri ‘now’ is an idea or concept of our mind; it is not something that is really definable physically at the moment, because we have to wait to observe it; we cannot even define it right ‘now.’ Furthermore, the ‘now’ depends on the coordinate system. If, for example, Alpha Centauri were moving, an observer there would not agree with us because he would put his axes at an angle, and his ‘now’ would be a different time.” – Richard P. Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I (emphasis in original)