From "The Unauthorized Fragments"

1

             I've taken a lot of trouble to make
             the work physical....
                      Werner Heisenberg, 1925

But if I had known what was to come,
I would have said something
apocyrphal, perhaps
emptying odd phrases into an urn
of dust, guilding them to a purpose
fragile as the invention of time
before all this became
attire for going astray, a means
for lives filled without subtractions.
             Once, we might have called them
ghosts, and kept on talking
because we were amazed
at how well we listened.

That corgi in your arms was something
about to happen and I was not trying
to be heroic.
             I wanted the moment
to be physical
in a way discipline can be
unwavering, to say that I, too,
adore dogs, and yes
if you were flesh, my fear would be
doing nothing.

Copyright © 2002 Robert E. Haynes All rights reserved
from The Grand Unified Theory
Paladin Contemporaries
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission