As I meditate here, tranquil,
by this gently burbling stream,
dappled with patches of afternoon sunlight,
autumnally serene,
a tiny breeze troubles the placid pool -
it trembles, and I must respond.
I sense you, my mirror-brother, by
your equally peaceful pond.
Your empire just as vast as mine,
your castle just as steep,
its guardians just as many and
its treasure-hoard as deep.
Pity the poor leaf, swirling by,
lost in its confusion:
we're beyond that, you and I,
we have no illusions.
Still, the puzzle of this push and pull,
this yin-and-yang of ours,
is a mystery I cannot see
though I stare and stare for hours.
The twisting, flowing dance we dance
has reached a sorry state.
Our balance is precarious.
We both just sit and wait.
My slightest motion would send out ripples
which you would swiftly sense,
so our whirling waltz of force is frozen,
implacable in defense.
Yet at the heart, where we are one,
is a single triumphant cry:
both of us willing in an instant to kill -
in an instant, to die.
Boulder Creek, July 18, 1998
revised December 1998 – January 1999
©1998,1999,2020 Howard A. Landman
Is this a study of two contemplative but embattled warlords, or a parable about a particle and antiparticle skittering Leidenfrost-like around the barrier potential that keeps them from annihilating each other in a blinding flash of pure energy? The entire poem is a triple-entendre, with every line having (at least) three meanings. It could just as easily have been entitled Symmetry, or Warlords, or Particle Physics.
Energy and Time 