Vacuum Collapse

March 2013, revised September 11, 2019

It could be out there even now 

slouching from Sagittarius 

at the speed of light –

the final cosmic tidal wave 

collapsing vacuum into void. 

The ghost of Koheleth cries again 

vanity, vanity, all is for naught 

for the number of the beast 

is hidden in the Higgs – 

125 GeV. Hear this and weep 

you prophets who probe 

the bitter equations: 

the pseudo-emptiness teems 

with too much and one day must slump 

to an emptiness more true. 

Oh this could be chimera.

Vacuum could hold 

as space expands forever 

and ever to emptiness again. 

Just so, beloved, the monster 

under your bed is nothing, really; 

somehow or other it’s nothing at all.

In the spell of the cold shadow 

you can feel the final calm 

of cosmic indifference. 

By ragged fields pale lilies bloom 

and sparrows sing more sweetly 

than they ever sang before. 

Photograph by David Noah
Winterville, Georgia

To Go to Patagonia

"Pacific Coast" by David Noah,
Winterville, Georgia

January ruminations on a 
Sunday Times travel section

Athens, Georgia

February 4, 2013

Some truths hover

just past the point of perception

and pass into knowing

gradual as gray dawn

Grows from blue-black nights

to gentle winter days in Georgia

singing frost and white camellia,

silver age and pale regret:

You’ll never go to Patagonia

never trek the tortured plain

to breathe the bracing air of Andes

blowing off the icy sea.

You’ll never see auroras dance

unless by chance coronas leap

and sear the Southern sky with fire

an hour before your time of sleep.

You’ll go no more to Mykonos

nevermore return to youth

to stride the sands of Paradise

while clothed in fresh Aegean air.

Some truths lie

harmless as hibernating vipers

that wake on warm days

to feed on minds that give them life.

But winter afternoons can glow

as silver yields to tones of gold

and old camellias burst in color –

so it is with elder souls

Who step beyond belief and doubt,

and freed at last of empty strife

embrace the wondrous, fallen world

which harbors grace within the shadows.

From this veil I would chase truths

past the far end of perception

where they flit, unformed

above a lonely Patagonia

Where somehow, surely

amidst the sun-drenched daydreams of God

my doppelgänger draws near

the Torres del Paine.

"In the Museum" by David Noah, Winterville, Georgia