Rodomontade

"In 1990 mission controllers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which operates America's unmanned interplanetary space probes, noticed something odd happen to a Jupiter-bound craft, Galileo. As it was flung around the Earth in what is known as a slingshot manoeuvre, Galileo picked up more velocity than expected. Not much. Four millimetres a second, to be precise."--"Wanted: Einstein Jr," The Economist

The article went on to note that some scientists that monitored JPL's other unmanned craft, regardless of mission, are reporting the same phenomenon--a slight change in speed, unexplained by gravity, inertia, or any of the known forces of the universe. A craft should be going at X speed, and something, some thing, it knocks what was once perfection and predictability subtly out of place. Just like Einstein did to Newton, and Newton did to the Bible. Who will do this to Einstein and his physics?

Four millimeters, whether faster or slower, matters. But my thoughts are more terrestrial, as children are ever more a part of a once-solo life, and thoughts of the next one to come will surely make time much more of a challenging thing than a incidental no thing. Will I notice seconds that are wasted, or minutes that expire without a connection to my kin?

My dad is the one who brought me back to earth, from a recent visit we had. Words with my father, a means of transportation, takes me back just a bit, back to times when time just was a space between other things. It felt nice to remember not being beholden to time, and appreciating that now, for fleeting moments only, can I waste moments without consequence.

My dad has gone home. The past returns, the future is very near. And as my past becomes intertwined with fog and falsity, I'm reminded of words I am sure to write some time in my seventy-sixth year:

I close every time you open,
opening only as you close.
It is this, much more than years, that has aged me.
This is a consequence of being sublunar.

At this point, those like me (there are too many)
have endured extortion for years and,
life-sentence prisoners starting to enjoy the attention of a beating,
we’re beginning to understand our crimes.

But just as the energy is exhausted.
What a horrible machine we are,
this sophisticated, cruel design assembled on the cheap,
unable to handle full occupancy and a full tank.
Loaded up, it doesn’t go far; filled with fuel, unshared elevation.
And so, life: enough to go halfway with some one for an adequate ride.
Enough. Thank the world for epiphantic instants (there are too few)
when consequences aren’t ignored, but embraced and brought along.
Gas it up, seat the world, it all burns.
What a ride

Ha: Would I have explained this fifty years ago?
Obscurity used to be so cool.
At a certain point, though, brilliance is a waste of time.
Or too tiring? At least to this thief.
I stole my own wisdom years ago, and now I reach back for my summer.
How real is any season from the past?
I’m too evolutionarily beautiful to care,
content that the world celebrates my beaux-zeaux art
in unanimous silence

just like my greatest day at the end of a millennium
when NASA put my initials on Mars.