# Poem of Yesteryear

**URL:** <https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/poem-of-yesteryear/5787>\
**Category:** Context\
**Created:** [4 February 2025 20:10 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/poem-of-yesteryear/5787 "2025-02-04T20:10:33Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![civilwestman](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/user_avatar/scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/civilwestman/32/25_2.png) [@civilwestman](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/u/civilwestman)\
**Post date:** [4 February 2025 20:10 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/poem-of-yesteryear/5787/1 "2025-02-04T20:10:33Z")

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_As best I recall, I wrote this about 25 years ago, around age 55. I guess it’s a millennial relic, then. It was posted on Ratburger & maybe Scanalyst as well. I dug it out and find it is one of two things I’ve written which remain `a propos with age. It still describes my thoughts and longings as well as - regardless of how much we know about the nature of reality - the growing sense of mystery underlying it all. Thus I subject you to it - once again for the long-timers._

A MEDITATION ON QUARKS, SENTIENT BEINGS  
AND COSMIC ARCHITECTURE:  
SUPERSYMMETRY ON WRY

On the occasion of a trip  
To see my waning dad,  
But a Planck’s length (relatively speaking)  
From the locus of my conception  
(In Earth co-ordinates),  
I came to wonder:  
How is it that the consciousness  
That is me  
Coalesced - by God - as it surely must have,  
In these dimensions, at least  
From leptons, bosons, and the ether?  
What magic made it me, and not some other?

As my own observer,  
My esse appears quantal,  
Discrete.  
And yet it partakes  
Of a singularity,  
Holding ever so tightly to  
Its evr’y bit of ineffable matter and energy,  
Lest it dis-integrate  
And cease to be,  
Leaving not so much  
As a ripple in space-time,  
As a memorial to its existence -  
Much less its meaning.

And yet this quantal self,  
In-formed, as it is  
With a force  
Masquerading now as gravity,  
Then as electromagnetism, and yet again as  
A strong nuclear force,  
Yearns for continuum.  
It reaches across quarks,  
The space between shared glances,  
And that between galaxies,  
Wondering and hoping for  
The resigned and wistful reply:  
I, too, am here,  
Separate.

And I also long to know and touch you;  
To bask in the warmth  
Of your brief existence,  
Which mirrors my own.

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**Author:** ![Hypatia](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/user_avatar/scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/hypatia/32/100_2.png) [@Hypatia](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/u/Hypatia)\
**Post date:** [4 February 2025 21:30 UTC](https://scanalyst.fourmilab.ch/t/poem-of-yesteryear/5787/2 "2025-02-04T21:30:31Z")

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Golly, you’re a poet, too! I think we’re all grateful for”the magic that made it [you], and not some other”…