Often we forget.
We live in an old world.
Orion strides nightly in his starry belt,
dark trees sway in the breeze,
yet still we forget.
Stuck in the clutter of daily detail,
we don’t see the new leaf flutter
of the old forest, so old, and we a part.
Apart from the world, we wander alone, touching
blindly, stumbling over the ancient ground
as if it were as young and heedless as we.
We are young and so forgiven for forgetting the world
from which we’re riven, but remember –
we play a part, not apart from our fellows;
we too stride with Orion and sway with the trees,
if only we remember.
—
Mac Mestayer is an experimental physicist recently retired from Jefferson Lab, a national accelerator center for nuclear physics located in Newport News, Va. His research focused on the quark structure of protons and neutrons. His hobbies include hiking, bird-watching, wood sculpture and poetry. He lives In Williamsburg, Va. with his wife Kathi.
