Hanuman showing Rama and Sita within his heart. Ravi Varma Press, Bombay.
I read in Science News that in searching for dark matter,
which makes up something like five-sixths of all that is,
though no one’s ever seen a scrap of it,
cosmologists are seeking proof of WIMPs,
“weakly interacting massive particles,” and
MACHOs, “massive compact halo objects,”*
neither of which have as yet turned up—
but didn’t we just elect one of these to be our leader?
I can’t recall which, but perhaps they are of dual nature.
The world, it seems, sprang from nothing ±fourteen
billion years ago, and in a trillionth of a trillionth
of a trillionth of a second, “a period known as inflation,”
assumed, give or take a little, its present size
but is expanding at an alarming rate.
For my part, I credit creation to the pagan gods on Mount Olympus,
Although when in a wishy-washy post-postcolonial mood I like to think
that Ganesh, the elephant god, and Hanuman, that Hindu Hercules,
god of Wisdom, Strength, Courage, Devotion, and Self-Discipline
(all qualities to which I aspire),
had something to do with it,
while Elijah rose in his fiery chariot to heaven’s veritable gate
and Eve was plucked from Adam’s side to be his date
but was seduced by a feathered snake, Quetzalcōātl,
backed by his psychopomp, dog-headed Xolotl.
My late great-uncle Mr. G., however, attributed the universe to Beelzebub,
and reckoned sapient suffering to be food for the Moon
—if not caviar for the unsated stars,
which they consumed with loyal toasts
in flutes of vintage ichor, blanc de blancs.
Perhaps we’ll get a better sense of all this junk
when Elon Musk has had his way with Mars!
*Elizabeth Quill, “Black Holes May Have Been Born Just After the Big Bang—and Might Explain Dark Matter,” Science News 207, 5 (January 2025): 33–41.
Sunday, January 12, 2925