Read about the poem.
The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep. Prospero, The Tempest. Act 4. Scene 1.
April 01
I awoke this morning with a startling thought;
it had all been a mistake, a dry run, an experiment —
this life.
The flowers on the bedroom sill
were no longer dry and wilted;
My toes now very reachable and
the heaviness of the last days
had lifted like the fog
most London mornings.
I wandered into the living room
and turned on the TV;
there were no reports of children pulled from rubble
no missles launched, no lying politicians, no sex scandals
just the newsman calmly noting that all battleships
were safely back in port and the sailors
sleeping soundly with their loved ones.
Outside I went for a walk and the wind
was at my back and very playful;
the trees were playing back and waving their branches
as people walked by smiling, wishing each other a good day
as they headed off jollily, to nowhere in particular.
A physicist friend once told me how we are
made of particles of the smallest kind and that
this stuff we are made of is of two minds —
can be two places at the same time and further,
he emphasized,
there were millions of other universes not just one
as we were taught at school;
and on these other planets
life operated by laws unlike our own and which would
put even dear Newton at a loss to explain.
Perhaps I’d woken up on one of those.
You suppose?
