A psalm of amazement (upon studying quantum physics)

  PSALM OF WONDER

upon studying kabbalah and quantum physics

 

I boast I grew a baby

from component cells. Big deal:

You built the cosmos

from component atoms, and those

have moving parts which shift,

performing particle or wave.

As photons yearn for the void

my heart yearns for You

though when we meet

I disappear.

When I ascend the ladder

I understand entanglement

though when I fall back down

my human brain can't grasp

the endless ein-sof

of Your quantum fields.

for R' Fern Feldman and Dr. Karen Barad

On the second day of the class I'm teaching (on writing the psalms
of one's heart), we worked with psalms of wonder and amazement. After
reading a variety of psalms (classical and contemporary) and talking
about them, we entered into a generative writing exercise and then wrote
our own psalms of awe.

Since I'm taking an extraordinary morning class on kabbalah and quantum physics,
that was what came immediately to my mind when I thought about wonder.
Anyway: for those who are interested, here's the end result of that 20
minutes of psalm-writing, once again lightly revised from its original
form.

Ein-sof means "without end," and is a kabbalistic term for God's most transcendent aspect.