Steven Schroeder | the father of the hydrogen bomb addresses the future in Bowling Green, Ohio

on stage, an old man
huddled over a microphone
sinks under the weight of nine
decades into a straight-backed chair
at a conference in Bowling Green, Ohio.

the past,
which exists,

he says, can be
established

with certainty,
but not

the future,
which does not.

the present,
which goes

without saying,
settles like ash

drifting from a slow fire,

an event from which a cone of light
emanates, spacelike, a world, burning.

Chicago
6 August 2023

[The first draft of this poem was written in July 1995, after a conference at Bowling Green State University. It resurfaced on a piece of scratch paper yesterday and has been revised and rewritten to a point at which I am ready to let it go out into the world.]