History of Nothing
Matt Morris
While I do not understand
the theory of everything
& I may not understand
the theory of anything,
I do understand nothing.
In the beginning was nothing
& nothing was everywhere,
though that’s not exactly true.
 There was nowhere for nothing
to occupy. Space was yet
a sly twinkle in the eye
of nothingness, which is
also imprecise, for this
was, paradoxically,
 before time itself. (Ergo,
questions about how widespread
nothing was & how long it
existed are nonsense, so
please lower your hand before
you embarrass yourself.) One
 theory, the prevailing one,
claims a fleck of energy
considerably smaller
than an atom—which wasn’t
yet a thing either, you’d do
well to remember—somehow
 formed. But, but—I can almost
hear you sputter—something can’t
come from nothing, & yet not
merely something, everything
that was & would ever be—
starry skies of faraway
 galaxies, silver salmon
struggling upstream, scraggily
bearded ibexes, jagged
junipers on snowcapped hills,
Picasso, free verse, free
love, god, the bomb & all doomed
 humanity—came to be
in that brief moment, a flash
of an unassuming fleck
which out of nothing was born
& to nothing will return
& so forth in that manner.
Return to Archive
|