Opus posthumous No. 2

In January 2009, just when there were the first hopeful signs that second line chemotherapy might buy us more time, I started a poem for Jen. I've written poetry sporadically since I was seventeen, but I wanted this poem to be as good as I could manage - both something for Jen herself to appreciate in life, and for myself and others to reflect on her. A friend warned me not to focus too much on completeness, but I thought we had a little more time than we actually did. So the first decent draft was 95% complete when she died, but she never read a line of it - that's another regret to add to the pile. The one comforting thought it that she knew I was writing it for her, as an act of love, and she appreciated the time that I spent on it.

The title of the poem - "God does not play with dice" - is an English translation of a remark of Albert Einstein's about the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics. You'll see it has six stanzas of six lines each, rhymed in three pairs. I have deliberately varied the rhyme scheme each time, to cover most of the variant ways for ordering three such pairs. The poem should be written on the faces of a cube, one stanza to a face, but I can't easily reproduce that here. Another time I'll post a photograph of the result. It's sufficient to notice that each stanza is linked with a number from one to six, so the arrangement of the faces should match that of a standard die. Then the sequence of the poem is broken, and depends instead on rolling the die.

I thank two friends who saw the first draft, and gave me some kind but helpful feedback. The Wordsmiths poetry group looked at the second draft, and showed me the parts that didn't work then, especially the fourth stanza. I've been feeling for a while that I need to finish this poem soon, and I've now forced myself to unpick that troublesome stanza and come up with something better. So it's finished, in memory of Jen.


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God does not play with dice

For Jenni, 1968-2009.

I used to love the elegance of plots -
with 'overall survival curves' that stopped.
Pascal's remorseless calculus of chance
was crafted for a gambler's ignorance.
These data drawn from suffering have begun
to pall - my love is only for the one.

Is it the impact of a long landslide
of consequences from a misspelt gene,
the silent canker creeping through the tree?
The meeting of two strangers may decide
your fate, change history, choose an unseen
outcome in the universal lottery.

The ancients saw them seated in a row,
sisters in white, implacable and cruel.
One to spin, one to measure, one to end -
Who can know the purpose they intend?
In legend even Death plays by the rules
When all your future's staked upon a throw.

Is matter random in its quantum heart?
- a modern heresy that Einstein fought.
Is this the fuzzy soul inside the laws,
a tremor in the certainty we sought?
Are fundamental forces only four,
or is it in the shadows that we start?

This is the work of your ancient hands,
written in the stars, entered in the book.
When your storm broke our foundations shook.
Are all our hairs still numbered in your plans?
Your fingers hold a pawn to sacrifice:
The days and nights are squares, the board our life.

Hope is imprisoned in a six-walled cell
when doctors hesitate to guess the odds.
Every moment has a flavour of farewell.
Every friend's an echo of the love of God.
In this time of fire your treasures are secure:
This kingdom, honour, passion, joy -- endure.