1. AN OLD LADY SEEKS COMFORT

Grief and pain–
phenomena of our big world,
Newtonian plane
Electrons zinging through, along, on

		What is the accurate preposition?
		                     (What is a preposition?)
		Who relates to what?
Electrons zinging [preposition] a time/space continuum
feel no pain, no grief, no shame, 
need no hope

Is this paradise? Nirvana?

“Continuum” not “continue”
Noun, not verb
is, not does
no effort to persist
		Is that felt as futility or relief?

“The ecstasy of a raindrop is to die in the river,”
says the poet Ghalib.
If we can dissolve into the dimension of electrons
                Is that not ecstasy?

A cosmologist peering at the wheeling galaxies or
at the electron lens
posits there is 
but one electron 
coming and going through time, through space
(That is why they all look alike)
		From some perspective do we not all look alike–
		birthing and death, joy and grief?
surely The Electron feels no pain nor grief
Or  if  so 
		                (How beautiful are conjunctions!)
The Electron must contain all ecstasy too.

“Shema. . . the Lord our God is One”
cries the theist at death
“Shema. . .the electron that exists is One”
replies the physicist					

Take comfort where you can.

“The Way that can be spoken is not the Way”
says the Sage.
All of It
All of Us–
One Electron 
to and fro on near-infinite paths
in moments glimpsed
                  now and now and then and then
       here and here and there and there

It doesn’t get more Tao than that.

							
Diane Wang, July 2024

2. An Old Lady Finds Comfort from John Wheeler’s Phone Call*

So many ways to deal with death
	Rainbow Bridge
	Pearly Gates
	Reincarnation
	Spirits
I use them all

Tigey, Tigi, Mink, Sam,
Puffy, Panda, Mommy Bob
Josephine–all
sun at their end of the rainbow
		sun verb or sun noun?
		sunning in the sun
They are in fact
the cat,
the sun, 
the drop (rain- or tear-),
the angle, the prism, the rainbow
They are all.

Davie, Don, Hema and Mike
(so many lost friends!)
wait for me
to digest the days with
Saint Gertrude,
Saint Michael,
Saint Dietrich,
the whole bloody gang.
Drowned and desiccated refugees
massacred martyrs
welcome me to their serene rest.

In my next life I will be tall
or maybe a cat

Mama and I talk more, 
and more gently,
than in her life
Grandma and I talk
she still disapproves
Richard and I 
argue endlessly

So many ways to deal with death
I use them all

If

all is One Electron
traveling its infinite paths
seen now going
now coming
In time

Then

Otherness is an illusion

diane Wang, July 2024

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

3. AN OLD LADY JOINS THE FLAT EARTH SOCIETY

At first
anomalies observed:
loose gravel 
shifted plate 
misplaced to the floor
Then recurring 
the trip s
the fall s
the flailing s
loosed
lost
shattered
landscape of crushed ice and shards
Everywhere is edges
table
cupboard 
curb
crack
L4  L5, S1
narrow ing  canals
Gravity is the stronger force
something times 32 per second squared
something times
so many times
squared with its four edges
more edges with more dimensions
more edges, more vertices 
more vertigo
Stay put.
narrow ing worlds
no longer a sapphire globe
curved and luminous horizon 
but flattened
with only hope that
weak forces and
surface tension
can hold membrane intact
moments longer
on a flat surface
							
Diane Wang, July 2024