Poetry
Hope Is an Illogical Concept
I attend a lecture by Professor Goff in an old hall
where he reveals the odds of our universe ever existing:
“astronomically low”—according to Smolin’s calculations 1 in 10229.
He argues this fine tuning demonstrates
that some particular purpose is at work in the cosmos
which infuriates an elderly nihilist in the audience
and prompts someone at the back to ask if it’s true
dolphins have always known the meaning of life.
When the chaos subsides, I think of you in your prime,
planting tomato seeds into trays, dropping them one
by one into tiny drill holes, carefully covering with compost
and how you would have laughed if I had told you this story
and how you always felt lucky to have been born
and how your last word before dying was “love.”
—Fiona Perry