poem

 States of Matter

There are actually more than three states of matter

I had no idea until recently

There’s even one called degenerate matter

Which depends on the Pauli exclusion principle

And unimaginable magnitudes of quantum pressure

We all know solid, liquid, gas—

Best illustrated by the H2O trichotomy

Of water, vapor and ice

But it applies to everything else.

Most of our world is frozen

If you really think about it

(Which I do, way too much)

All this bedrock upon which

We stand and erect a world 

Once ran rampant as molten lavas.

Anything now liquid had to be melted

Which makes one wonder 

If blood was once smelted

From ancient ores of the gods 

And poured in the molds of our veins.

The gases are a breed apart, like thinking,

Odorless and invisible we forget 

How completely they have us surrounded

And never leave us alone. 

One way to keep it straight

Is to think of time as the liquid

Metronomically lapping against our shores

Stripping away fragments of us 

Every time it hits.

Instantaneous moments are the solids

Pausing long enough for us to touch 

And love is the invisible ether 

We all become when molecules

Heat up and rattle around inside our cages.

Human beings, famously, are a mixture

Of all three, spiced 

With a dash of degeneracy

4/9/25