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.