String Theory by Steven L. Peck

On the warm late Spring shore, late
in a lunar glow,
he stood looking at the waves
trooping slowly, relentlessly into the cove

He stood wondering about the strings
of which some say he was made

Of what tidal forces were they drawn?
What sort of other moon forced him
into existence by its orbit around . . . what?

He placed his foot in the sand
it felt cool, rough, and yielding

What are these qualia, ‘cool’, ‘rough’,
‘yeilding’, and why such pleasantness
bubbling up in the vibrations he has become?
How do vibrations, causing vibrations, ponder
those vibrations?

Becoming? Vibrations becoming?
Vibrations becoming him?

Before the deep waves had twisted into
just the right harmonies to
create this self, this himself,
what was there? Nothing? Abyss?
but then . . .
How? Why? How why now?

So there is the moon €”a bolus of strings
bouncing light waves from an even larger
solar knot of strings, exciting waves
in neural bundles packed within her eye,
passing through intricate
webs of waves upon waves in intricate and
complex tangles and astonishing frequencies,
which finally erupted into

a pleasant night, on a beach, watching the
ocean move.

__________________________________________________________________________

Steve Peck is an ecologist at Brigham Young University. Creative works include a novel:  The Gift of the King’s Jeweler (2003 Covenant Communications); a self-published novella  A Short Stay in Hell (reviewed  here and  here), a short science fiction story:  The Flaw in the Lord Harrington Scenario, published in  HMS Beagle (online journal by Elsevier); poetry in  Dialogue,  Bellowing Ark,  BYU Studies,  Irreantum, Red Rock Review,  Glyphs III,  Tales of the Talisman (in press), and a chapbook of poetry published by the American Tolkien Society called  Flyfishing in Middle Earth.   Steve blogs at bycommonconsent.com and has a faith/science blog called The Mormon Organon.   For other poems by Steve, go here and here.

*contest entry*