POEM - THE HIGGS BOSON
THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN
I have subscribed to the new Yorker for years to read their poetry and cartoons. The magazine is otherwise too liberal for me and has otherwise never made any sense. The last decent poem was by Seamus Heaney bout 10 years ago. He got a speeding ticket driving to nyc and wrote a marvelous poem about it. Since then, the New Yorker poetry has gone done hill along with their silly liberal ideas, so I cancelled my subscription a few months back.
Since then, the following poem appeared, sent to me by a friend. It is delightful.
THE EVIDENCE OF THINGS NOT SEEN
How strong the lens, how keen the eyes
To see what we hypothesize,
To watch so small a thing in motion
As what we’ve christened the “Higgs boson,”
A tiny, massive thing that passes
For what can best explain the masses
Of other things we cannot see
But somehow, nonetheless, must be.
A thing so small is surely cute,
Though weirdly shaped, perhaps hirsute,
And just as real as any wraith
Imagined with the eyes of faith
Jay Curlin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson
Hirsute - hairy
wraith (r th)
n.
1. An apparition of a living person that appears as a portent just before that person's death.
2. The ghost of a dead person.
3. Something shadowy and insubstantial.
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