A cloud of virtual particles
surrounds real ones,
better to describe matter
as a possibility



occurring, or not occurring:
electrons described
as clouds changing shape
in uknowable order,


or knowable chaos:
Place a cat in a box
with a poison tablet
triggered by the decay



of one radioactive atom.
The cat is both dead
and not dead until
the box is opened


collapsing the field:
The event is triggered
by the observer.
Schroedinger's thought
      experiment


isn't strictly accurate;
the quantum field is
collapsed by the poison,
or at least the poor cat.


The point of the analogy
is about certainty
and occurrence: We know
how many atoms

will decay in a sample
of unstable material
but not which ones.
In isolation, one particle



is no more predictable
than a million as a group.
Einstein was offended
by quantum mechanics


and quipped, famously
“God does not play dice.”
This is amusing, considering
the story of how Einstein went


for an evening walk
in Amsterdam
and forgot where he lived.
He called information:



Einstein, Albert. Ja,
die Telefonnummer,
sehr gut... Was ist
die Adresse?


He knew that he must live
in one of those houses,
just not which one.
The map inside his mind



was like a Feynman diagram,
all the possible Einstein homes
drawn around a real Albert
that walked in confusion.


This is important, not
because we can see each
subatomic particle leaving
its trail in liquid hydrogen,




not because humanity
is made of mesons
and leptons, not even
because this knowledge


has been translated
into a mushroom cloud.
No, I am trying to talk
about my body:

This ineluctable particle
is part of my mind,
the music passing
through the air.

Silence is the only cacophony,
Charles Ives would probably
have said

as he went into the study
to write music

that required two conductors,
tempos shifting back and forth
like clouds changing shape

and shuffled manuscripts
with papers calling for a ban
on the Senate.

Or perhaps he thought
of actuarial tables,
the way they tell you,

with reasonable certainty,
how many people
will die in car accidents

but not who.
Sometimes an ensemble
sounds like it will dominate

the music, but it plays
in the background
and the foreground

at the same time.
There was no argument
in the salons of Europe—

under the spell
of twelve-tone music—

about the worth
of Ives’ music; he wrote
in almost total isolation,

much of his music
premiered decades
after it was written.

The matter of how
Stravinsky or Schoenburg
would ahve reacted

is an open question.
Any good student of music
is offended by something

in Ives. In the third movement
of this symphony, an organ
blasts a monumental chord

and is barely heard again.
No one who cared
about the practicality

of performance would call
for such an instrument
and have it play

such a minor role.
Ives said he wanted
“to hear what God hears.”

Perhaps he was thinking
of the Mongol archers, poised
at the brink of dominating

all of Europe and Asia
but were called back
to the capital

never to leave Mongolia again,
or the Vikings
who almost settled

North America
hundreds of years
before the English.

Watchman, Tell Us
of the Night plays
at the same time

as Jesus, Lover
of My Soul, and Columbia,
the Gem of the Ocean.

This could be my body,
with its impossible rhythms,
and irregular movements.

The one singing All Hail
the Power might be me.
The trombone that plays

Joy to the World
—almost a musical joke—
could be my vioce,

a place where I show up
in the group portrait
of the universe,

the part of the music
passing through my mind
and then the air.