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Considering the wizard’s brew of the world, the pandemic, and generally predictable unpredictable humans, it isn’t beyond me to daydream of alternate realities. I am drawn to one of my favorite collections of poetry, by former and repeat client James A. Heffernan. The title, Many Worlds, refers to a quantum mechanics “interpretation” that implies that the universe can split into different versions of itself, and that time doesn’t flow from past to future, or in the manner many of us think it does. (This is my meager and perhaps misguided layperson’s definition! Read on for a more scientific description in this fascinating article in the MIT Press Reader.)
Here I offer an excerpt from Heffernan’s poetry book, pictured above and self-published in 2019. This is a poem entitled “Inky Bits,” which has everything to do with why we write:
Inky Bits
I do not wish to forget
So I write down all I can
When I am not doing that
I am saving thoughts
Computers come in handy
For such immortality
When hard drives crash
One’s thoughts die with them
We rearrange reality
To suit whatever purpose
Our brains exteriorize
While we extemporize
These rearranged molecules
Teach us to remember
Otherwise we would forget how
And awkwardly dredge nothing
If we wish to be more spare
And perhaps more old-fashioned
We can write a word or two
To produce inky bits
Like an extension of awareness
These bits only have meaning
When we read them back, later
We are changing reality and changing mind
What power we have
When we are able to do this
Altering the world, in order to
Alter our own consciousness
* * * * * * * * * * * *
To purchase a copy of James A. Heffernan’s paperback book or ebook, please visit this link.
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