A Wave Can Be a Particle by Eleanor Lerman


 
 
Here is the problem: that the life the body
contains may not be the same as the life
that the mind imagines. Indeed, the suspicion grows
as time expands that we are hiding things
from ourselves. Big things, shaped like nebulae
or chandeliers; in other forms they express velocity
They are going so fast that we doubt we saw them,
but we did. Before and after we were born, we did
 
We do. Which is why the suspicion grows that
laid out on a cold bed in the dying light may be
the fate only of bones. That there is, perhaps,
another example to consider: as a wave can be
a particle and a particle a wave, you need not
chain yourself to the belief that a steady state
is the singularity that holds all value
 
but may think, instead, of the feeling that
comes over you in the moment before a
weeping ghost appears to you (and only you?)
from the darkness beyond the bedroom door,
or approach the threshold you must cross when
you go into the woods and find yourself upon
the hidden path that, rumor has it, leads directly
 
into the void—but step, instead, into
another springtime. On the flowering lawn,
a girl you swear that you once knew
is laughing, and all around her (but not
only her), the windy sky is full of stars
 
 
 
Eleanor Lerman is the author of six volumes of poetry, a collection of short stories and two novels. She is a National Book Award nominee, 2006 winner of the Lenore Marshall Prize, and recipient of NEA and Guggenheim fellowships. Her most recent poetry collection is Strange Life (Mayapple Press, 2014).