Dan Guenther is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the author of four novels, most recently Glossy Black Cockatoos, the 2010 Colorado Authors’ League award selection for genre fiction. His collection of selected poems, The Crooked Truth, is the 2011 Colorado Authors’ League poetry award winner.
Driving back to Denver
By Dan Guenther © 2012
You pull off the interstate at the Dubuque Street exit
to enter another wormhole of your checkered past.
You discover pizza submarines are no longer on the menu at The Mill.
But the hundred-gallon aquarium behind the main bar still swarms
with tinsel barbs speeding through streams of endless bubbles,
while the giant sucker-mouthed bottom feeder,
anchored to the glass, sleeps in a separate universe:
West of Denver wildfires drift southward toward Colorado Springs.
Back in the high country the smoke plume has made your family woozy,
and they yearn for rain just as you would recover the elapsed years.
Here in Iowa City you hope that someone you once knew
might come peeking through one of Time’s many trap doors.
And if you accept quantum physics
that theory holds the many possibilities of your various futures
as infinite;
and if that’s the case all your lies might eventually turn out to be true.
No one should ever expect closure with anything,
the twists and cul-de-sacs of our records
rewritten to suit the current state,
and given to perpetual invention as to what really might have been.
Those things presumed dead come slinking back
into our brief and fragile present where all forms that age become plastic.
Let them go the way of the wildfire raging through the Colorado night.
The winds coming down from Wyoming bring only dry, electrical storms
to spark the darkness, and offer no relief.
Hey Dan – this is really esoteric but are you alluding to the quantum theory explanation (Einstein’s) of ‘superposition of states’ with this line – ‘Those things presumed dead come slinking back’ – as in Schrodinger’s cat?
I’m curious because in another previous life, I worked for a summer at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) viewing thousands of hydrogen bubble chamber photos of decaying subatomic particles. My august title was ‘Data Reduction Specialist’ and part of the job requirement was reading up on particles as an overview for the task, not that DRS’s were expected to understand them deeply of course.
Anyway, if I could even begin to write poetry (had Mark Strand for Poetry Workshop at Iowa) would try to write a poem called ‘Schrodinger’s Cat’
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/Schrodingers-cat
When trying to explain Einstein’s concept of superposition of states, Schrodinger used the example of a cat in a box that could be both alive and dead at the same time – a kind of zombie cat conundrum – in a state that depends entirely on an observer – which is where Q-Theory comes in.
The bottom line is – there is no single outcome in quantum theory – unless it is observed – and because it is impossible to ‘see’ a decaying subatomic particle, all these cat particles can exist and not exist at exactly the same time.
(This is my interpretation Dan – so be careful not to say anything about it if you are ever talking to someone who knows how particle physics works – could be embarrassing.)
Anyway – I bring this up as I observed decaying subatomic particles hundreds of times a night and thousands of times a week because after ‘colliding’, heated subatomic particles get followed around by relatively fat and visible bubble trails in the liquid hydrogen and theories get conceived about their behavior.
The experiment I was involved with was looking for antimatter and quaintly named ‘The Doppelganger Project’ – after a German myth that says we all have equal and opposite ‘selves’ (doppelgangers) in this world and if we ever meet the other ‘us’ – poof – we’re neutralized!
Just a note of interest (a stretch maybe) – while I was working at SLAC, we never found any evidence of antimatter in all those bubble photos. Read a few years later that they actually did get some results however.
Also wonder if this new ‘God particle’ (Higgs boson) discovery is anything like a ‘graviton’ which only exists in theory to explain how particles are attracted to one another – and perhaps explain gravity – but not to be confused with ‘gluons’ that do exist.
See how you’ve made my head hurt Dan – and what poetry can do to people if you’re not careful? Hah! dc
Thanks Dick,
Your interpretation is right on. The answer to your question is yes. I was alluding to Schrodinger’s Cat’ in that line,
among other things. Years ago, as a high school teacher, I developed an interest in particle physics, especially that reaearch
that had to do with the strong and weak forces of the atom. You mentioned the Higgs bosun, which many authorities
consider the missing cornerstone of particle physics. Often refered to as the God particle, the discovery of the Higgs bosun
essentially confirms that the universe was formed the way scientists believe it was. Dan
Read more about the Higgs bosun at the following link:
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-the-god-particle-such-a-big-deal-2012-7#ixzz1zmQB9fZt
And don’t forget Heisenberg – I think his “uncertainty principle” is not to do with “observers” interacting with particle position and state, but the nature of wave mechanics itself. However it is often confused with the observer problem I think.
Was reminded of Heisenberg several weeks ago watching four seasons worth of back episodes of “Breaking Bad,” AMC’s super hit series about a research chemist who worked at Los Alamos Labs and ends up with terminal lung cancer. He then gets involved with cooking meth big time so his family will never want. His alias is “Heisenberg.”
In fact he is so smart he takes over the production and distribution of the purest meth ever seen in the western states and has run ins with vicious Mexican cartels, local New Mexico “scums”——as my niece calls them——and the DEA. This while living the double life of a mild-mannered high school chem teacher on one hand and being a public enemy and murderer on the other.
All relative and tantamount——morally I mean. Think we have discussed tantamount here before too.
Anyway, new and last season starts July 15th on AMC and if you haven’t picked it up already, give it a look. Gritty and no particle physics in it, but lots and lots of chemistry——and did I mention gruesome action? You’d think it would be a guy thing, but my wife is totally hooked on ‘BrBa’ too!