Size / / /

It means the headwaters of mass,

the treacly origins of inertia,
have been discovered. It explains

why rocks stubbornly refute
the argument of my toes; why galaxies
clump like moths around a dark flame;

how a whale floats in the sea dreamy
as a balloon, yet a small oyster
of a child clings heavy as a millstone.
Maybe it even explains why tragedy,

a metal and plastic bolide, hurtles
unstoppable through red lights;
how grief presses down on lungs
to squeeze out the last sweet breath;
why a black hole of absence hangs so heavy.

It has cost billions to build
god-sized synchrotrons aswim
with sticky-fingered particles,
and thousands of papers covered in black
specks of data like locusts
swarming on error-bar wings

to confirm what every family knows.




C. W. Johnson's poems have appeared in Asimov's, Stone Telling, Goblin Fruit, Star*Line, and non-genre magazines. His 2012 poem "Vigor Mortis" was nominated for a Rhysling Award. Johnson's fiction has been published in Analog, Asimov's, Interzone, The Other Half of the Sky, and elsewhere. He is a professor of physics specializing in theoretical nuclear physics, and his research articles appear in Physical Review C and elsewhere.
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14 Jul 2025

This exhibition presents pieces from our permanent collection that are rarely displayed together, in order to illuminate the life of one of our most celebrated early rulers, Nizararuddin Zafer Abu Hassan Mohammed, better known as Prince Nizar.
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