A few notes: This poem refers to various ideas from physics and brain science. Even if you’re not familiar with these ideas, (which I'm only aware of as an outsider looking in at science), you can still appreciate what the poem has to say about the mind-boggling qualities of the universe. Among the scientific references in the poem, quarks and strings are subatomic building blocks of the world, smaller than atoms, according to various theories in physics. Some theories say time isn't real. Others say our universe is constantly splitting into a multitude of universes in which every possible outcome of events is realized. And brain science raises questions about whether our conscious selves have the free will they appear to have, and about whether our selves are what they appear to be.
To His Reluctant Sweetheart
by Ken Sanes
Subatomic quarks and strings.
How can life be good by half
when the world is full of missing things?
How can life be our own
when the brain decides before we know,
and laughs and cries, and then we go?
In fact, how can life be much of anything
when the brain is all there is of me,
and I still face nonexistence
in a world of mostly space I can’t even see --
in a world, no less,
where I’m a speck in an expanse,
a sensitive dot,
and I’m defined almost entirely
by what I am not?
For that matter, how can I even
extol your beauty with a rhyme
when physics says the entire verbal edifice
may depend on what is only
a semblance of an interval of time?
The answer, I fear,
is that the world is missing at the core.
We’re missing too.
And that’s all there is: there isn’t any more.
But even though I may not be me,
I have to say that I still yearn for you.
And even though the universe
may be only an exploding space-time bubble,
I know that you’ll be true.
So let me pose a question
that a less candid man might fail to ask:
if there are no things, and no you or me,
doesn’t that make us really, really free?
After all, how can we possibly get into trouble
or who can claim we violated a taboo
when I’m not me and you’re not you?
And if we’re free, My Dear, then why shouldn’t we
throw our cares to the wind
and be done with this illusory sense of sin?
Why shouldn’t we wipe away our tears
as we banish all those existential fears,
and kiss and kiss and kiss and kiss
until we make our own all-too heavenly bliss.
In fact, why shouldn’t we take the ultimate step,
and deeply touch throughout the night,
given what we face in the morning light?
Who could possibly blame us
for committing a sin of commission
when physics has revealed a universe
that looks like an unexpectedly large
and intricately impossible act of omission.
Besides, if the universe is splitting
into a multitude of worlds,
then other versions of our nonexistent selves
will do what they do even if we don’t do it here.
That means, whatever we do, we do it,
and we don’t do it, and we still disappear!
So I entreat you, My Luminous Photon,
My Vacant Sunflower Who Spins,
now that we know the truth of the world,
let us vow that we will never fight,
but be everything in each other’s sight,
together at last in our space-time bubble.
And let’s make a fateful choice
to put an end to crying,
since we’re not the ones who die
in a world where we’re dying.
Yes, let’s make our choice, My Dear,
to entwine in passion under the stars above,
and create multiple universes of eternal love.