Nature – Energy and Time

Sonnets To Orpheus II, 28

O komm und geh. Du, fast noch Kind, ergänze
für einen Augenblick die Tanzfigur
zum reinen Sternbild eines jener Tänze,
darin wir die dumpf ordnend Natur

vergänglich übertreffen. Denn sie regte
sich völlig hörend nur, da Orpheus sang.
Du warst noch die von damals her Bewegte
und leicht befremdet, wenn ein Baum sich lang

besann, mit dir nach dem Gehör zu gehn.
Du wußtest noch die Stelle, wo die Leier
sich tönend hob-; die unerhörte Mitte.

Für sie versuchtest du die schönen Schritte
und hofftest, einmal zu der heilen Feier
des Freundes Gang und Antlitz hinzudrehn.

Oh come and go. You, still a child, enhance
for the blink of an eye your dance-figure
to a pure constellation of that dance,
wherein we momentarily exceed the poor

boring order of Nature. For it stirred
to fully hearing first at Orpheus' song.
From then on you were moved, and got disturbed
a little if a tree took very long

deciding if to go with you to listen.
For you still knew the place, where the lyre
arose resounding -; the unheard-of center.

So, you attempted pretty pirouettes
in hope that your friend's course and face might yet
be turned toward the holy celebration.

Sonnets To Orpheus II, 13

Sei allem Abschied voran, als wäre es hinter
dir, wie der Winter, der eben geht.
Denn unter Wintern ist einer so endlos Winter,
daß, überwinternd, dein Herz überhaupt übersteht.

Sei immer tot in Eurydike-, singender steige,
preisender steige zurück in den reinen Bezug.
Hier, unter Schwindenden, sei, im Reiche der Neige,
sei ein klingendes Glas, das sich im Klang schon zerschlug.

Sei - und wisse zugleich des Nicht-Seins Bedingung,
den unendlichen Grund deiner innigen Schwingung,
daß du sie völlig vollziehst dieses einzige Mal.

Zu dem gebrauchten sowohl, wie zum dumpfen und stummen
Vorat der vollen Natur, den unsäglichen Summen,
zähle dich jubelnd hinzu und vernichte die Zahl.

Be ahead of all parting, as if it were
behind you, like the winter that just passed.
Because among the winters there is one so endless winter,
that you must overwinter it, before your heart can last.

Be always dead in Eurydice - rise up singing,
rise up praising, once again concerned with purer matters.
Be here, among the dwindling, in the realm of sinking,
be a ringing glass, that in sounding swiftly shatters.

Be - but still know non-being's conditions,
the infinite foundation of your innermost vibration,
so you fulfill it fully in this only time around.

To all the used-up, silent stale provisions
of abundant nature, the unspeakable summation,
count yourself in joyously and cancel out the count.

Translation notes:

lines 5-6: “singender steige, preisender steige zurück in den reinen Bezug”: This is similar to Petrarch’s “dietro a quel sommo ben che mai non spiace / levate il core a più felice stato.” from Rime sparse #99. In Durling’s translation, “lift your hearts to a happier state, in pursuit of that highest good which never fails.”

Sonnets To Orpheus I, 26

Du aber, Göttlicher, du, bis zuletzt noch Ertöner,
da ihn der Schwarm der verschmähten Mänaden befiel,
hast ihr Gescrei übertönt mit Ordnung, du Schöner,
aus den Zerstörenden stieg dein erbauendes Spiel.

Keine war da, daß sie Haupt dir und Leier zerstör',
wie sie auch rangen und rasten; und alle die scharfen
Steine, die sie nach deinem Herzen warfen,
wurden zu Sanftem an dir und begabt mit Gehör.

Schließlich zerschlugen sie dich, von der Rache gehetzt,
während dein Klang noch in Löwen und Felsen verweilte
und in den Bäumen und Vögeln. Dort singst du noch jetzt.

O du verlorener Gott! Du unendliche Spur!
Nur weil dich reißend zuletzt die Feindschaft verteilte,
sind wir die Hörenden jetzt und ein Mund der Natur.

But you, divine, to the last resonating
when swarms of scorned maenads were bent on your murder,
you drowned out their shouting with beautiful order,
from out the destroyers rose uplifting playing.

No one there damaged your head or your lyre,
however they rushed you or rested apart;
and all the sharp rocks they threw at your heart
grew soft when they touched you and able to hear.

In the end they dismembered you, driven by vengeance,
but your sound yet lingered in cliffs and lions,
in forests and birds. Even now you still sing there.

Oh desolate god! You unending trail out!
Only since blind hatred strew you about
are we now hearers and a mouth for nature.

Deer Park

by 王维 Wang Wei (699-759 AD)
translated by Howard A. Landman

鹿柴                   Deer Park

空山不见人，    Empty mountains; no people are seen,
但闻人语响。    though I hear a loud voice on the breeze.
返景入深林，    Looking back between deep forest trees
复照青苔上。    I see sunlight on green moss again.

Wang Wei was an Amida Buddhist of the Tang dynasty. The home of the Amida was considered to be in the west (sunset, India), so the sunlight can be viewed as a metaphor for the Buddha’s teachings, and the lit moss a metaphor for enlightenment.

The title also has Buddhist echos, since the Buddha’s first discourse was given in another deer park (a kind of wildlife preserve).

This poem has been translated many times. There’s even an entire book consisting of nothing but such translations, titled 19 Ways Of Looking At Wang Wei.

I originally translated this poem in 1996, but, having learned considerably more Chinese starting in 2014, I’m no longer happy with that version. This one is tighter and more accurate, if a bit less colorful.

Mary Anne’s Garden

White house, brown woodwork, red roof tiles, brick chimney;
maypole with ribbons all woven around it;
afternoon sunlight through trellis and ivy;
flower bed purple and orange and scarlet;
wrought iron bench with cobwebs aplenty;
churchbell strikes six with a faraway sound;
tiny pink roses, fuschia, honeysuckle;
part of the fence looks about to fall down;
rustling of leaves from a breeze that's too gentle
to ring the rusty windchime; robins
tweeting and chasing each other in pairs;
stop-and-go swirl of flies braiding the air.

Some parts show evidence of an intelligence
shaping and digging and planting to plan.
Some parts look wild, overgrown and abandoned,
nature reclaiming as much as she can.

Somehow,
this marriage of care and neglect,
this interpenetration of will and wildness
at the border of order and verdure,
embodies a basic human desire
for heaven; trowel in hand, Michaelangelo's Adam
reaching out to touch a green and leafy god.

for Mary Anne & El
Oakland, June 27, 1998

This is the same Mary Anne Mohanraj for whom Green-Eyed Monster was written. El was her roommate. It’s their garden.

Oh, the hubris

I finally submitted the EM time dilation paper today. To Nature. Oh, the hubris …

I expect that it will either be rejected, or transferred to a subsidiary journal like Nature Physics. But one has to start somewhere. I decided to start at the top and work my way down.

UPDATE June 1: Rejected. Quite politely, and with the option of transferring; which I did, to Nature Physics. They normally take about a week to make their initial decision. So, back to the garage with the new static belt.

UPDATE June 5: Rejected by Nature Physics, with a suggestion to submit to Scientific Reports, which is an open-access journal with a processing fee of $1875, an acceptance rate of 53%, and an impact factor of 4. Basically, they’re telling me they’d be happy to publish it in a low-impact journal if I pay them to do it. So I think it’s time to jump out of the Springer-Nature food chain and look in my second-choice set. Having Carol, with her long experience in publishing scientific papers (albeit in other fields), around to advise me is a great blessing.

arXiv blacklist

In a recent Nature article about complaints about ArXiv’s rejection policies for physics articles, Dan Gottesman (whose work I admire) claimed “there is no arXiv blacklist”. Unfortunately, this is complete bullshit, as I am on their blacklist and they told me so in no uncertain terms. When I tried posting an early version of my QTD paper there, it was rapidly taken down and I was informed that the takedown had nothing to do with the contents of the paper but was entirely based on who I was: a person with no established history of publishing peer-reviewed physics papers.