Relativity<\/p>\n
And even if the story never went, the story goes \u2013
\nwhen Einstein was on the road
\nexplaining Relativity to the academy,<\/p>\n
his chauffeur caught the gist of it so quick
\nand Einstein got so bored, they settled
\non a quick change act and changed clothes;<\/p>\n
(not unlike the time my dead brother came back
\nfor the hammer on the back seat to beat the catch
\non the gate to the house we never lived in closed,<\/p>\n
and my father, hearing that car door close, put two
\nand two together, indicated, checked his mirrors,
\nslipped the car into gear, and struck out for home).<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
So, night after night, in one auditorium after another,
\nEinstein\u2019s driver recited the nuts and bolts of it,
\ngoing on what he\u2019d gleaned, and Einstein,<\/p>\n
decked out at the back in tunic and peaked cap \u2013
\nchipping in with the occasional helpful question \u2013
\nkept their deception up by driving his driver home<\/p>\n
and grew to appreciate, in his rear view mirror,
\nhis driver in the back seat, sound to the world
\nor gazing out at his reflection gazing in, whispering<\/p>\n
equations, as one more object closer than
\nhe appeared, and the two of them as men granted
\ntime out of their lives by living each other\u2019s;<\/p>\n
(unlike my father who, if he chanced to glance into his,
\nit was to check the road was clear, not for a child,
\nbecause \u2013 Lord knows \u2013 he had heard the door close;<\/p>\n
and \u2013 now that it dawns \u2013 what was it he drove that night
\nif not my brother\u2019s ghost, and what was this for the child
\nwith no way of knowing, if not a fore glimpse of his own<\/p>\n
afterlife as he stood out on the road, watching his flesh
\nand blood, in disbelief, recede, tail lights burning
\nand shrinking into the growing dark like coals);<\/p>\n
*<\/p>\n
And all went fine until the night the Chair invited
\nquestions from the floor, and the feared question arose,
\nthreatening to stop the driver in his tracks<\/p>\n
and make him hope for a hole to open up
\nand swallow him, (the hole that opened when
\nwe got home and my father turned to ask me<\/p>\n
where my brother was \u2013 because \u2013 it dawns again \u2013 *<\/p>\n Except – here being where you\u2019d think myth kicks in \u2013 instead of coming clean without a scene on the periphery of event to ferry stars despite spotlights blinding him, his offspring, or whoever it was standing freezing on the road, or an old stager biding *<\/p>\n across the vast expanse of that auditorium, beneath, (the white of my brother\u2019s face in our those points of light beneath; and, feeling and medium wave, seeing air and smoke meet flicked, into the dark, a hot thought, brushed * and drive the road just travelled back so akin are the search for an answer and blinded by light in a dark hall, it behooves unto me <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Relativity And even if the story never went, the story goes \u2013 when Einstein was on the road explaining Relativity to the academy, his chauffeur caught the gist of it so quick and Einstein got so bored, they settled on a quick change act and changed clothes; (not unlike the time my dead brother came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[327,328],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nI too was there \u2013 and \u2013 mirabile dictu <\/em>\u2013 I had to relate
\nthe yarn of the-hammer-the-catch-and-the-twice-closed-door.<\/p>\n
\nO Gleaming Myth,
\nunhampered by Memory or Truth \u2013<\/p>\n
\nand reassuming, without further ado, the life
\nhe\u2019d grown accustomed to of hovering<\/p>\n
\nthrough silence and in darkness,
\nto swop pleasantries and look pristine,<\/p>\n
\n(like the odd headlight blinding
\nmy father on the road back to collect<\/p>\n
\nwherever it was whoever had set out from
\nhowever long ago \u2013 the fruit of his loins<\/p>\n
\nhis time for the earth to turn, nursing, like
\na grievance in his palm, the hammer\u2019s weight \u2013<\/p>\n
\nthe chauffeur sought the shine
\nof his own peak in the hall, that shock of white<\/p>\n
\nheadlights, silenced by the glimpse he has
\nbeen granted of this life going on without him),<\/p>\n
\nthe world curve at his wheel, hearing
\nthe music of the spheres on long wave<\/p>\n
\nat fly window and windscreen and, seeing
\nin that instant, his road clear to the horizon,<\/p>\n
\nGold Bond<\/em> ash from his sleeve, assumed
\nhis feet and, into that thronged dark, spoke \u2013<\/p>\n
\n
\n\u201cLadies and gentlemen, esteemed colleagues,<\/em>
\n(brother, son, for whom we perform
\na three-point turn a stone\u2019s throw from home<\/p>\n
\nto open a door again to you to this \u2013 your life \u2013
\nbecause we could never enter the lit house without you) \u2013<\/p>\n
\nthe search a man performs for the gleam
\nof the peak of his own hat where he stands,<\/em><\/p>\n
\nto take \u2013 as it were \u2013 a back seat,
\nand stand aside
\nto allow my driver answer.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n