James Moore Poet Narrative

Notes About The Poem

Down to Zero

(“The Particle In The Wave”, 2018, original encaustic)

Down to Zero

In the great equation of Life
Everything eventually cancels out
As it naturally balances
And leaves us down to zero.

From the perspective of static
The dynamic is the illusion
From the perspective of dynamic
The static is the illusion.

Buddhism with its notion of a final Nirvana
Takes the former 
Taoism with its effortlessly flowing Wu-Wei
Takes the latter.

That is the East, while in the West
This paradoxical duality is expressed
Succinctly by quantum physics
As the wave and particle nature of light.

The reality is always, of course, different
Than what we think, when we’re at zero
And left with what it means to be alive;
In work or play, depending on our view.

(7/21/25)

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