ABRUPTO

09:40 (JPP)

EARLY MORNING BLOGS 393

Dark Matter

Scientists at the University of Rome, according to the New York Times, may have finally detected dark matter, the stuff that roughly eighty percent of the universe may be made of.

Like certain superheroes, particles
of dark matter pass through other matter
unimpeded. But anti-gravity, scientists
explain, "still cannot be expected

to reverse the course of a falling apple,
or drive an inflating wedge of nothingness
between lovers." Which may be why
the hero works best alone.

Pals and sidekicks can be helpful,
but women are too curious, too quick
to believe the men they're with
must be, at heart, different men.

Of course they're right. And the hero
is in trouble if he doesn't
keep his other self a secret.
He wants to be in love, to offer

all the confidences a lover should.
But he has to save the world,
again and again. Thus it seems true
that a wedge of nothingness

divides the man and the woman,
but also that the falling of an apple
is irreversible.
The hero must expect evil

to continue. He cannot afford
to be surprised by strangeness.
Or ever expect a life in which
he could only be himself.

(Lawrence Raab)

*

Bom dia!