God Particle
by Jonathan Travelstead
Oppenheimer tested fate and the first nuclear bomb at Trinity,
chancing this pale blue dot’s mushrooming into the black
for only a glimpse at the smaller cogs. Sure, in a few short hours
we’ll hitch a ride to Alpha Centauri on packets of light,
but just now in Geneva physicists sling particles like stock cars
in opposing directions around a track, then comb the smashup
for evidence of God lying, bleeding in the wreckage. Is found
in the form of new physics for which we've neither invented nor
tuned the proper instruments for recognizing. ‘Forty two’
spelled out in quarks. A matrix of corkscrews believed to be
the Rosetta Stone for translating gravity to magnetism. Glyphs
you believe into a pocket watch the moment you need one most.
Times we must trade the old, broken Pontiac in on a new one,
leave behind our notions of the combustion engine.
Every good experiment risks cloud flutter, blue earth
tattered into confetti. Watch now as they toss photons
and pray for snake eyes. Watch- blue sand bucket and trowel
in hand, and rush out when the tide recedes. Help me
to fossick teeth and shells from the sky's helices,
asters of light.
Gyroscope Review 24
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