the electron, the Moon, and the poem

writing and quantum mechanics

reality trumps even the most brilliant:

Einstein just didn’t want to accept quantum mechanics

for he denied that an individual observation

could force an electron into being one way over the other,

Einstein felt the Moon was there, whether he observed it or not,

I often write of the creative process,

at least in terms of writing,

the how and where and what seem to materialize

once a choice is made by the author,

the very act of putting words on the page

somehow lets this one reality come into being,

how marvelous that the writer 

is as observer to reality,

somehow the writing is forced

to become one way or the other

because a writer exists, and chooses,

the Moon may exist independent of us,

but the poem and the story do not.

by Henry H. Walker

November 16, ‘15