Singularity

POETRY FORMAT, 18 Apr 2022

Marie Howe - TRANSCEND Media Service

After Stephen Hawking

Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?

so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money —

nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone

pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept.

For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you.
   Remember?

There was no   Nature.    No
them.   No tests

to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf    or if

the coral reef feels pain.    Trashed
oceans don’t speak English or Farsi or French;

would that we could wake up   to what we were
— when we were ocean    and before that

to when sky was earth, and animal was energy, and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not

at all — nothing

before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.

Can molecules recall it?
what once was?    before anything happened?

No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb      no noun
only a tiny tiny dot brimming with

is is is is is

All   everything   home

________________________________________________

Marie Howe (born 1950) is an American poet. Her most recent poetry collection is Magdalene. In August 2012 she was named the State Poet for New York.


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This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 18 Apr 2022.

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One Response to “Singularity”

  1. Gary Steven Corseri says:

    Thank you, Marie Howe!

    Yes!

    Simple words that go deep!

    Deceptively simple…like the deceptions we weave around ourselves, our “knowing” you from me and me from you, and our little pea-sized Earth from Cosmos!

    Profound Oneness!