In the Beginning

 In the beginning was,

Well, the start. In the start

Was the word. Or the light,

Lux, fiated. Fated? Was

The universe fated to be

And/or not to be? In the 

First place was no place,

Less than a speck, a tiny

Spec-piece of  this period. No,

Really. Out of that

Micro-dot came All.

In that beginning was a Boom-

Bang-Big-Thang. In

The beginning was the end,

A reeling in, an eternal return,

An 8 lying on its side. 

In a human baby’s beginning

Is a grammar, a formal loam

Already ready for sounds,

Signs, words, phrases, phases

Of versation. Hear the toddler

Form past present future,

Possess the prepositions,

Put syntax in the right position. 

All right, light, let it be, let it

Go on, shine forth. In the Begin,

Let's lean in, watch our words,

Listen here, hear, listen:

We're caught in brute matter

And magic, always beginning. 

hans ostrom 2024

Entropy Dance

Entropy is undefeated,

has a perfect winning streak
since the Big Bang boogied
and bopped into Universe. Still,

things and beings have
their days and nights. Our sun
can do some gardening here
on Earth for a span we really
can't imagine. I will

have lived and listened
and read about physics
(the math inscrutable to me)
for some decades. Decades!
Less than a single photon
as far as Time's concerned.

Brothers and Sisters, the aging
run out of energy. Their coping
turns into an awkward
dancing tribute to Entropy.

hans ostrom 2023

The Universe Has On Its Traveling Shoes

They say the universe expands
at about 48 miles/72 kilometers
per second. What's the rush?

The universe never pulls over
to stay in a motel for the night.
It doesn't need a map or GPS

because it's everything, so it
knows where everything is.
It doesn't know where it's

going because it's perpetually
at the end of a road that never
ends, but the universe is going

in the correct direction because
there is no other direction.
When traveling, the universe

never packs light. (It is

light.) It always takes everything

with it, as indeed we often wish to do.



hans ostrom 2020

The Schedule of Time and Space

Did space and time arrive at the same
time? Maybe time arrived on time
and space was running late. Or

Space could have been hanging around
waiting for the concept start to start.
And both time and space reported
for duty before the Big Bang, right?

It's all rather enormous and confusing.
I suppose it doesn't matter now, now
that matter is, and is space taking time
to rearrange itself constantly. Anyway,

it can't be any accident that Einstein,
whose schedule included lots of work
with time and space, developed
a comic affect.


hans ostrom 2016