Norman Ball
Quantum Semantics
Remember the electron
from high school chemistry?
Its orbit was a crisp affair
—at least pictorially.
Today it wanders here-to-there
without ensuing travel.
No rendering can render it.
All portraitures unravel.
We miss our things, Neils Bohr,
our fabled solid ground
—a place to rest our heads
that doesn’t vanish and confound.
This quantum is a quagmire.
What pen can pin it down?
I penned this poem pinned on the hope
my ink might hold its ground.
_______________
Norman Ball is a Virginia-based writer and musician. His work has appeared in a number of venues, among them, Raintown Review, Main Street Rag, Light Quarterly, Epicenter and others.
Photo credit: a textbook picture of a Bohr atom inside an artist’s concept of quantum foam.
Poem © 2007 Norman Ball. All other content copyright © 2007 ByrenLee Press
Copyrighted by the author unless otherwise noted.
Art Director: Bonnie Brunish
