Brandon Marlon
Dark Matter
We, tesserae in the cosmic mosaic,
stew in our uneasiness, existentially
discomfited by fractional knowledge.
Unsatisfied with partial insight
amounting to no more than
a sandbar, we crave the beach;
the tip of the iceberg cannot satisfy
those who would grasp the glacier.
Our senses and instruments probe
the stelliferous vault in a valiant quest
to reduce the abstruse, all for naught.
Strivings come to nothing once
we glimpse beyond the cloak
at particles caliginous and lurking,
their qualia and quanta evading perception,
eluding our understanding.
We stagger at the sheer illogic of it all,
groping for trenchant tools with which
to identify the invisible scaffolding
neither admitting nor emitting but deflecting
light, to detect filaments and lineaments
of a stable, tenfold mass substance
hitherto withheld yet ever-present,
the fabric and sinew of the universe.
Sedate elders of wisdom and sobriety
presume our efforts are in vain.
Yet human antipathy to the unknown
is innate and motivates our ventures:
we simply know no other way
but to infer from the implied,
and dare not abstain from attempts
to manifest the latent in our midst.
The Burning Question
On the heralded day, overdue if not ordained,
when electric currents buried deep within
our planet's kinetic core of molten iron
cease generating the geomagnetic field
shielding life from hazardous space weather
and radiation, when the internal dynamo
animated by a south-north feedback loop
attenuates to the point that it spontaneously
flips poles and reverses direction,
when Earth's defenses fail, dooming it
to resemble Mars in its terrible barrenness,
will our heirs be prepared and endure?
Even at this very moment, as the South Atlantic
magnetic anomaly brews beneath our feet,
shifting flux in patches, subtly hinting at that
eventual and eventful hour when
magnetism no longer deflects charged particles
from the solar wind in a dipole structure,
instead diverting radiation toward low latitudes
where most mortals dwell in blissful ignorance,
there remains cause not merely for concern
but for hope in civilization's ability to cope.
Perhaps by then cancer will have been cured,
and humankind's scions will routinely witness
auroras shimmering across night skies
the world over, a poignant testimony
to survival despite inescapable cataclysm.
Brandon Marlon is a writer from Ottawa, Canada. He received his BA in Drama & English from the University of Toronto and his MA in English from the University of Victoria. His poetry was awarded the Harry Hoyt Lacey Prize in Poetry (Fall 2015), and his writing has been published in more than 160 publications in 23 countries. Find more of his work at brandonmarlon.com.
Dark Matter
We, tesserae in the cosmic mosaic,
stew in our uneasiness, existentially
discomfited by fractional knowledge.
Unsatisfied with partial insight
amounting to no more than
a sandbar, we crave the beach;
the tip of the iceberg cannot satisfy
those who would grasp the glacier.
Our senses and instruments probe
the stelliferous vault in a valiant quest
to reduce the abstruse, all for naught.
Strivings come to nothing once
we glimpse beyond the cloak
at particles caliginous and lurking,
their qualia and quanta evading perception,
eluding our understanding.
We stagger at the sheer illogic of it all,
groping for trenchant tools with which
to identify the invisible scaffolding
neither admitting nor emitting but deflecting
light, to detect filaments and lineaments
of a stable, tenfold mass substance
hitherto withheld yet ever-present,
the fabric and sinew of the universe.
Sedate elders of wisdom and sobriety
presume our efforts are in vain.
Yet human antipathy to the unknown
is innate and motivates our ventures:
we simply know no other way
but to infer from the implied,
and dare not abstain from attempts
to manifest the latent in our midst.
The Burning Question
On the heralded day, overdue if not ordained,
when electric currents buried deep within
our planet's kinetic core of molten iron
cease generating the geomagnetic field
shielding life from hazardous space weather
and radiation, when the internal dynamo
animated by a south-north feedback loop
attenuates to the point that it spontaneously
flips poles and reverses direction,
when Earth's defenses fail, dooming it
to resemble Mars in its terrible barrenness,
will our heirs be prepared and endure?
Even at this very moment, as the South Atlantic
magnetic anomaly brews beneath our feet,
shifting flux in patches, subtly hinting at that
eventual and eventful hour when
magnetism no longer deflects charged particles
from the solar wind in a dipole structure,
instead diverting radiation toward low latitudes
where most mortals dwell in blissful ignorance,
there remains cause not merely for concern
but for hope in civilization's ability to cope.
Perhaps by then cancer will have been cured,
and humankind's scions will routinely witness
auroras shimmering across night skies
the world over, a poignant testimony
to survival despite inescapable cataclysm.
Brandon Marlon is a writer from Ottawa, Canada. He received his BA in Drama & English from the University of Toronto and his MA in English from the University of Victoria. His poetry was awarded the Harry Hoyt Lacey Prize in Poetry (Fall 2015), and his writing has been published in more than 160 publications in 23 countries. Find more of his work at brandonmarlon.com.