Particle Man (poem)

Evening by Diana Savostaite Art 

​In rainy darkness
last night
wind quickly dragged uphill
applewood smoke
cedar
fish
 
Who was there
standing
boots in pale silty mud
molten above the hardness
winter’s legacy
clinging on
 
It was him
watching smoke as
headlamp photons withered
white flecks dotting
black rain
undecided snow
shimmering in lamplight
against the void
 
Circuits of stars
slowly rotating 
an imaginary disk
around an arbitrary hub
unique in the Universe
to this vantage
cycling through night
behind black clouds

We think it true
even unseen
but on a clear night
we know it
 
Smoke crawls upward
along forested slopes
when none can see
 
Tomorrow
rain adheres scent
distant tree trunks remember
whose muddied boots
wrinkly rain pants
wetted shirt
comforted in angling
in freezing rain
obtuse to Earth’s plane
 
A particle man
here or there
defying rhythms circadian
alert aware
snapping twig
gonging grill lid
woman-bird
her song ephemeral
waves carry it
to him
elsewhere
beneath a blackened sea
swaying pines towering
he darts as his quarry
once did
 
Where fish fall
complete their circle
men grow then rot
as all does
do
will
 
For now
hard-won meal
improbable what you’ve done
tiniest grapple
thinnest thread
unseen in the seam
you predicted
prevailed
 
What value of things
food clothes shelter
inside
orange warmth radiates
outside
white smoke spirals
disappearing to the
unknown
 
Particle man
predict his location
but never when
state the time
he could be anywhere
a quantum
his own state
invisible
inconsequential
unconquerable


© Matty Adams 2023