The Margin of Error

You seem to have a vague recollection of an Old Friend you loved 
Who hasn’t kept in touch
but still you write
unsure of whether it’s the right address
because you think you were close once—
or was it only once upon a time?
or in a previous life, at that?

You’ve tried to write the story of the former intimacy
and called it scripture, sometimes;
sometimes, myth.

And at the edge of an abyss we stand and think we hear
“Leap! Leap!” but cannot really be sure
and think it’s that Old Friend
     but are not sure.
And yet we feel we have to do something, 
and the trauma’s so great
it splits our personality in two:

Science, which first susses out the terrain,
mapping more and more of terra incognita,
inventing seeing and listening devices to estimate the distances,
trying to figure out how to build 
     a bridge across, a ladder down, a rocket up and over
so we won’t have to leap so bloody far,
go splat unnecessarily;

Religion, resentful of these innovations,
says, “No, you have to jump from way back here,
     just like forever.
We cannot disappoint our Old Friend:
Running starts are not allowed.”

And, once the head of the family and used to being right,
or making everyone think that he was right,
or say as much, at any rate,
he’ll murder Science every now and then.

When all Science wants and warns is
“No, it’s closer from up here!
Why guess and hope what you can know?”
Yes, Science combines the cleverness of Wile E. Coyote
     with the genius of the Road Runner, in one;
Religion, the gullibility of the one
with the impetuousness of the other.

Yet even Science hears the voice
     or thinks he hears a voice
and stands at an abyss
where the whistle in the wind,
the open spaces,
make him feel he too
must do something.

When Science thinks that in the end 
he will not need Religion,
he thinks erroneously.
But usually it is Religion that fears Science, erroneously: 
Both require the Artist as the Intrepid Arbiter;
Both require the same leap of faith. 


originally published in Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense (2021), Shanti Arts, Maine, USA

The Mathematician on God and Love

If there's a universe, with space and clocks,
And it's an “open set,” including all
The points within the thing but not the shell
Or points beyond, then Zeno's paradox,
That you can’t bang my head against its wall,

Obtains. But if it's, rather, a “closed set,”
Includes its edge, that is; and if, indeed,
It, plus all points beyond, is what's called God,
It might behoove us both a bit to get
As far as the edge, and try to glimpse outside.

But that we go at all, and can in curves,
And when we err can trace back and do over,
Suggests that rather than the “Prime Mover”
It only needs a center, for all swerves
Are circular—which means we might maneuver

Without an end at either end, as bold
As math, and be as certain that we are
As that it is. For if it's circular
It has a heart!—or center, which shall hold—
In theory, though math only goes so far.



originally published in an earlier version: Aries, 2009 

James B. Nicola’s poems have appeared in the Antioch, Southwest and Atlanta Reviews; Rattle; and Barrow Street. His seven full-length collections (2014-22) are Manhattan Plaza, Stage to Page, Wind in the Cave, Out of Nothing, Quickening, Fires of Heaven, and Turns & Twists (just out). His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. His poetry has received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, Storyteller’s People’s Choice award, one Best of Net, one Rhysling, and ten Pushcart nominations—for which he feels both stunned and grateful.