Willing

or

a meditation on the possibility of changing -- anything.

(I think I wrote this in about 2003, but I am no longer sure.)

Today the leaves are falling
in abandon
with the breeze,
but -- unless I sneeze (or maybe even if I do)
each leaf will fall
exactly where it would
if the universe reversed
for a second or two
and then commenced.


I try it with my mind, down many ruts.
a Billiard-ball batch splitting
or …
a lone ping pong ball
descending down a toggle-board of nails.


Watch it drop, then back up time, and try the drop again.
Should everything within the universe be set the same,
from the frame and direction to
the plain of the moon,
and the currents in the room
and the zoom of electrons in the path …
Then (I surmise): Given the same input,
the output
will be --
MUST be
identical with every turn.


The ball unleashed
encounters, to my eye – a smorgasbord of a option:
Will it bounce this way or that, fidget or hang,
or chart any of a thousand different paths?


But unless, plugging up the unused options
modifies the course,
we need not ever give that ball a “choice.”
The trajectory and end, were found in the beginning.
The falling ball encounters nail,
rebounds in accordance with its essence
and the rules that govern matter.


The force, the fall, the vapors in the hall,
the construction of the shell,
the rust on the nail, the gravity of light,
the rotation of our planet and protons,
all combine to sculpt the path from the begging to the end.


The junctures are illusions
teasing finite minds, But give me every fact,
(and an omniscient calculator)
the end is just another way
of saying “means” …


Indeed, Every cause (apart from God) is at once an effect,
and every effect - effects cause;
The two are glued …
And the leaves that flutter dance on the freedom of sky
are but slow moving
bullets in a crooked barrel
drawn by the target.


Until....
I blow.