Apophenia—the human tendency to see connections and patterns that are not really there—gives rise to conspiracy theories. — George Johnson
Since my spell check
does not recognize
the word apophenia,
I ask for suggestions
and it comes up with
Ah, Ophelia!
But I am suspicious
of this Ophelia
who has appeared before
when I have mistyped,
I wonder if
she is out there
searching for random
patterns in my life,
random being so hard
to perceive
when you are so
intent on finding it.
Toss some coins on the table—
is that random?
Watch the oak leaves, always
the last to fall, whip over
the house and huddle
in that safe place
beside the front door.
Is that random, or does
this house just encourage
desperate things
to find comfort here?
Desperation—now, we're getting
somewhere, along with despair.
And who isn't two breaths
away from despair nowadays?
I have a friend who
is intent on making his fortune
by identifying random,
yet predictable,
patterns in oil futures.
I wish him luck.
I will hold the door open
in case he needs solace,
but I might also
introduce him to Ophelia.
Under her umbrella,
they might shelter
from the facts, raise a family,
name their children
for the conspiracy
of the moment, even live
on the thinnest of rumors
until randomness aligns
with their predictions,
as it must eventually
if it is truly random,
and the house will
still give shelter
to lost things.
On summer nights
they will sit on the patio
and name the constellations
and all of the stars
in deep space,
and when everything aligns,
he will put his head
on Ophelia's shoulder
and tell her that
he always knew
she would be true.
I hope to be forgiven for my lack of faith
in the natural world.
Behind the mask of science, reason, myth,
there is forever another mask,
every intricacy slipping us clues, but never
the answer we want.
A bird lays an egg in a nest in a tree
that my father planted
from an acorn thirty years ago. It changes
everything—it changes nothing.
Inside the fruit a seed, inside the seed,
another tree planning
its next assault on Spring, complexity within
complexity—infinity nothing
more than another layer of uncertainty.
And yet, I have been told
that spiders dream, that flowers shiver
at a human touch,
that the cosmos can pulse and breathe
at a discernible pace.
Afloat on a summer day, I can see it now,
how the present nudges us into the future,
the way my granddaughter's grey eyes
reflect her father's, or that age-old,
familiar glance my grandson gives me
from his keyboard. The future comes,
not in a rush, the way the dog brings
the sheep to the post, but how the cat
picks up her kittens one-by-one, by
the scruff of the neck, moving them
silently to another secret place,
just as mysterious as the present
but with a promise that there is more
to come, even as days grow shorter,
even as time makes its claim on us,
marks us in the long calendar of days,
that recognize the present as a moment
to be seen, a moment to be left behind.
The GPS thinks I am lost on these country roads,
and it may be right, but I have been this way
before and am counting
on landmarks to show me the way, even as
the GPS voice recalculates my every turn.
Soon, I will pass
a family cemetery with its single broken yew.
I've always wanted to stop, but not today.
Today Beth has invited me
to come see the newborn lambs. It has been
a hard winter, with losses still too fresh
to be named.
Come see that the world is still with us,
she says, even though others may
have left it behind.
Another mile, and I pass the Amish meeting
house with its horse-drawn buggies
tied up along the fence.
But I am going farther—past the Stillwater
Prairie, turning onto a twisted road,
past a stone church
built on land too rocky to be grazed, suited
only for steeples and tombstones.
And now, as I turn
onto a graveled lane, I can hear the long,
wavering cry of ewes and their lambs.
Baa, and baa, and baa,
they say, repeating the only words they need
to know—I am here; I am not lost,
and I belong to you.
Cathryn Essinger is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Wings, Or Does the Caterpillar Dream of Flight? from Dos Madres Press. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, The New England Review, Rattle, Terrain.org, The MacGuffin, Southern Poetry Review, Calyx and other journals. Her work has been featured on The Writer’s Almanac, and reprinted in American Life in Poetry. She lives in Troy, Ohio, where she raises butterflies.
Images of the cosmos from Levi Walter Yaggy’s Geographical Study (1887.) [via The Public Domain Review, https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/yaggy-geographical-maps/]
