The Multiverse; Under the Lawrence Tree
The Multiverse
We started talking about the multiverse
before the twentieth century, a different way
of making sense, acknowledging
the changeability and indifference.
Science opening up the notion
of one self turning left
while another is driven to turn right,
a new conundrum of freedom and constraint.
Despite the theories, most of us
still hold on to the universe
as the largest thing we can imagine.
But sometimes I watch that other self
from a different angle on the multiversity,
slide down that other choice, what I might
have said instead, in that room of dry twigs,
gasoline in the corner, and so many matches,
then watch myself continue along
that low road for a while, too long at times,
wondering how that would all turn out.
My doppelgänger grinning in the distance,
waving from what looks like a getaway car,
moving out of sight to live out a half-life
I can never keep track of.
And really, who knows I didn’t
take that turn? Who knows that isn’t
a reality? It is certainly more satisfying
than this silence.
We usually have more than two choices,
infinitely more in this pluralistic multiverse,
as Oppenheimer put it when his work opened boxes
without opening them, when he elaborated on
one unfortunate cat, or a lucky one,
while another self exploded and ended
far more than his better self
would ever have agreed to
or intended.
Under the Lawrence Tree
The summer night cool on our skin, the colors
fading quickly into evening. Together here,
we grew into the Sangre de Cristo skies.
My children born and rooted in this place,
it became home, waiting for the hummingbird,
watching the lizard disappear into the dusk.
Like Lawrence, fellow traveler, they can see
the tiny dinosaur that darted into his poem.
This land held me when I thought it was over,
brought me back, showed me another way to go,
took me to this time, lying here on our backs
with new eyes. Poets, artists, children—
tilt the world, our view to the branches
and through to the stars.