lōtos + zizuphos

It’s possible that neutrons have been getting a bad rap.

Once they free themselves from the nucleus,
we start calling them “unstable,”
as if their transience,
their ephemerality,
was something for which they should be criticized.

But maybe they’re stable like fireworks,
like dreams,
like air blown through a saxophone.
Ask any of them,
they’re not likely to call themselves “unstable.”

But we,
we namers of phenomena,
we labelers of the world,
we mock minutiae.
We point at quarks and call them strange.
We hide our quirks and search for blame.
We listen as transience passes through us,
in one ear and out the other:
the gentle assuredness of undefinable quantities.
They pass through the air,
beautiful, invisible.

Does that make them unstable,
or is it we,
surrounded by soundwaves,
who are?