A psalm of amazement (upon studying quantum physics)
July 05, 2013
PSALM OF WONDER
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.