Mary E. Ladd

"What is it that all of a sudden called you  
from nothingness?"  
                                   - Erwin Schrodinger  
   

It came to me last night, the beginning, the starstuff,  
The symptomatic waves of coming forth, a child.  
And on her first terrestrial day, the red, waterfall  
Heartbeat, the game of magnets and attractions,  
Original motion was laid out for me.  

A woman in a green smock laid her fingers  
On the shiny belly, and mouth over face  
Blew tornadoes in to the water-pale toes.  
Then, eyes shut and palms summoning,  
My child asked me if I knew who I was, last night.  
And I said, yes, I am the speed at which  
Particles collide.  

As I've said, the order of things  
Came to me last night.  
First the spin of universal paraphernalia,  
The Quark, the Anti-Quark,  
Then physics and metaphysics and wondering  
And war,  
The swirling fallopian Milky Way.  

It was like a game of pool,  
The atom of the universe that came through me.  
Or a pinball, very determined,  
Moving movement in me,  
Moving dolls from dolls,  
Rising the curtain, the very first blink  
All of a sudden, love and creation  
From mere coincidence.  

                                        - Mary E. Ladd