Superposition
‘…the quantum effect where particles exist concurrently in multiple places – has, historically speaking, only been thought to apply to tiny, subatomic particles.’ Dr Stefan Forstner, University of Queensland.
If the speed of human thought is 10 bits per second
then for a tenth of a second this morning I was both
running alongside the A20 and at home still curled
beneath the duvet, as if I was experiencing a parallel life,
as if I was existing in two places at once, for a moment,
the blink of an eye, a heartbeat, an instant, a jiffy, a trice.
I know about the expansion of time in dreams, how hours
are compressed into minutes, how our subconscious taps
into a limitless store of thoughts and feelings, an infinite
number of things touched, smelled, heard, spoken, or seen.
But how in a waking state could I be so convinced of being
concurrently here and there, both moving and still?
The sky is a persistence of cloud, its low mist erasing trees,
meeting fields, dampening my face, my hair; I feel like
a conduit between two states: earth and water. Perhaps
we always exist in dualities but rarely notice. Perhaps I am
beginning to understand both the beauty and decay
of my wondrous life, the gift and theft of inevitable death.
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