Atoms and Void There is no body without void – Epicurus I You’d have thought it endless, Lucretius— The laminar descent of atoms Falling through a void serene and mute, Each atom unhurried, alone, Descending at a constant pace, Unmoved by force, untouched by will, No dawn to break their quiet fall, No god to stir the silent dark. But then—a swerve, a subtle bend, Two atoms veer, incline, and meet, A fragile sign of nascent will, A fracture within fate’s per

Pond Life If water is the primal origin of all things (as the ancient Greek sage Thales of Miletus supposed), then considering how hard it is to wade through, it must also be oil and pitch, mercury and salt, sulphur too, with differing degrees of power and viscosity, all stirred up and blended into a huge pool of liquid substance, thick enough to get yourself stuck in. But don’t call on the old gods and nymphs of Thales’ day to be your life guards. They won’t jump in and save

Artful Agaze, the artist is beset by eros Of no vulgar kind. Crossing the chorismos, He takes his tools, kneads and forms And sculpts. Substance yields to some thing new. But partially obscured by dark spots, The result is more product Than idea.

Circling We move in circles around each other, encircled and encompassing, each turn driven in part by our own will to move and be moved, driven too by that First Cause, the Prime Mover, whose very existence guarantees the endless movement of time and the unceasing, ever-expanding production and reproduction of man’s vain desire to touch and be touched. But that First Cause does not turn, cannot turn; it thinks Itself alone and is unmoved, or at best does not know of the stri