To this day, I still wish I had been smart enough for a career in physics. I find myself thinking about certain theories a lot, albeit the simplified versions, because parsing nuance and context in research papers is beyond my skill set.
This week, I was thinking about the Paradox of Time, which has gotten me considering—once again—free will and how much our infinitesimal personal choices could possibly matter to the universe. And yet—while thinking of the interminable futures for myself, I am often terrified of the worst-case scenarios. I have no way of knowing what possible futures are on the table for me, but my mind's capacity for entertaining bullshit seems to be limitless.
I alluded to this poem last week, but Matthew Olzmann's "Letter to Bruce Wayne" has been rolling around in my head for awhile now. The first couplet utilizes a turn of phrase from Borges, in the pattern of "A good place to hide ___ is in the ___." It really hooks into your head from the very start. To illustrate, Olzmann starts the poem with:
A good place to hide a drop of water is a stream.
A good place to hide a stream is beneath an ocean.
You can see how catchy this can get. It got stuck in my brain. I'll post the whole poem so you can see where Olzmann goes with it. It's a little on the longer side, but well-worth the time spent.
Letter to Bruce Wayne
Matthew Olzmann
—After Borges
A good place to hide a drop of water is a stream.
A good place to hide a stream is beneath an ocean.
A good place to hide a man is among thousands
of men. Watch how they rush
through the city like water through a ravine.
I’ve searched many famous cities for you.
There are three listings for “Bruce Wayne”
in Houston, two in Pittsburgh, one in Miami, and one in LA.
In Tampa, Bruce Wayne is a retired chemistry teacher.
In Flagstaff, he drives a taxi and hopes
to procure a diamond for his soon-to-be fiancée.
A good place to hide a star is a galaxy.
A good place to hide a galaxy is a universe.
Look at the night sky. Justice
used to be a cowl and cape, the flicker
of wings under an etiolated moon. And you,
like a gargoyle, crouched atop some stone edifice.
To conceal a universe, place it in a multiverse—that hypothetical
klatch of alternate realities. The dilemma of the word
alternate is how it implies a norm, a progenitor stream
from which the alternate diverges. Which is the alternate?
Which is right here, right now? There is no such thing
as Gotham City, but here is Gotham City and I’ve been
so naïve: believing the truth of the old mythologies.
How they promised a recognizable villain,
a clown with a ruby-slashed mouth, a lunatic’s laugh.
In the universe where I exist, supervillains
look like everyone else. Give them an old flannel
to wear and a square jawline to smile at the world.
They’re hanging a noose in a middle school bathroom.
They’re shouting, Get out of my country,
from the window of a passing car.
They’re pulling a pistol in a crowded barroom,
or bus stop, or the middle of the street.
They could be anyone. They could be everywhere.
A good place to hide a sociopath is a full-length mirror.
A good place to hide that mirror is the heart of America.
In the battle of Good versus Evil, I was so sure
Good would win. Now I just hope something Good will survive,
get a job cutting hair or selling cars, make it home for dinner.
I suspect there’s a parallel dimension where you, Vigilante,
long for this as well. To have a normal life is victory enough.
To remain anonymous and not be spat upon on the subway.
In Boston, Bruce Wayne owns a pawn shop.
In Milwaukee, he plays pinochle and feeds stray cats.
In New Hampshire, he goes fly—fishing on the Sugar River,
reels in one brook trout after another.
When he removes the hook from a mouth,
he might place the fish in a cooler.
Or, he might set it back into a stream—
the alternate or the original—no longer certain
in which he stands.
I just love the interweaving of comic mythologies and theories from physics. I love it so much that I had to write a response poem.
