Reflections on Time
Each possibility is a reality in a different world. . . In that parallel universe where granddad never made it to first grade or ran off with the circus, you were not born. But there are other granddad universes and therefore other ways to make you.
Fred Alan Wolf Parallel Universes
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
T.S. Elliot Burnt Norton
Here’s a comment from my brother David Bruce Bortin, together with a poem he wrote and gave permission to post. Thanks, “Bruce”. Yes, cerebral, but I keep rereading and thinking about it.
Hi, Sylvia. Your quote from Parallel Universes brought to mind a “poem” I just wrote. Too cerebral for good poetry, but I thought you might enjoy it, anyway:
Interconnectedness
Pierce through the smooth, clear surface of Lake Flat
With one hand. Just reach down an inch or two.
Now Flatland’s population’s up by five,
But we of Spaceland know those five are one.
Fom Pointland, Lineland, Flatland, Spaceland, to …
Do you think we’re the ne plus ultra here?
In Flatland, most must see themselves that way,
For Flatland is a “show me” state, like ours;
Their hardware’s flat, so we’re outside their ken.
And Nextland’s outside ours, but still it’s real.
So, ostrich, raise your head up from the sand.
This is no threat, but opportunity.
For knowing of what we can’t know about
Is cause to celebrate and cerebrate.
Are you and I both fingers of one hand?
Perhaps. I only know we cannot know.
But this, I do: existence is a web
Inscrutable, eternal, infinite.
We’re each of us a part, and none apart;
Connected and dependent, each to all.
The ties that bind, we cannot see or know,
But take on … what? (On “faith,” I almost said.)
Did dread religion rear its awful head?
Or is religion different from God?
It once meant “bound together,” nothing more.
Now, bound together in this web we share,
Religion’s come full circle. I believe.
– David Bortin, April 6, 2010