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Realities

 

 
Selected poems

 

 

Flowering

 

A cactus rescued from the roadside

kept by my son for years

until he moved house

was passed to me.

 

For fifteen years it survived

even after losing one fork to drought.

That side cut back and replanted

flourished in a doubtful spot near the back fence.

 

Now after recent rains

a first surprise cactus flower

large with light fresh colour

peacefully blooms.

 

 

 

Realities

 

The table top feels solid

but scientists know it’s from charged electrons.

The atoms beneath

are mostly empty space.

If you take that space away

the earth is as big as a sugar cube;

a heavy sugar cube.

 

Small particles change to energy and back

connect and stay connected

through time and across distance

and make new connections

in Einstein’s spooky entanglement.

If flows of energy along connections

allow our brains to think

then what or who else is thinking?

 

Could a storm burst

because butterfly wings beat

a thousand miles away

to tip dominos of change

so the future emerges

like in the Chaos theory we use

to estimate future weather?

There might be surprises in lives

perhaps to answer prayers

without the need to amaze.

  

                                               

 

 


Paul Williamson is an Australian poet. He has published poems in Australia, UK, US, Canada and Japan. His has seven collections including  Edge of Southern Bright (Ginninderra Press, 2017) and A Hint of Eden (Ginninderra Press, 2021).  He contributed to and participated in the release of the Canberra/Nara Twin City tanka poetry volume in Nara, Japan in late 2018.

Topic tags: Paul Williamson, poetry

 

 

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