Everything in the universe is held

(everything. The whole bewildering totality

of star and atom, event and void)

in a net of connection, the overlapping sea

of space-time

where every distance (through time, through space) can be

measured from that slant line,

hypotenuse, by the old geometrist’s

theory of triangle. Events combine

in patterns that may stretch and shift

yet stay forever linked — a faith beneath

all partings, on which geometry insists.

She has walked the baseline of grief,

step by step, wondering what point

to fix on in the circling funeral wreath

of galaxies. There is no point

where the dead can wait for her unchanged.

No future heaven out of time. Only the faint

and fading ripples of the past, retained

as best she can. Remembered touch

of hands that rearranged

her hair and pointed to Orion. This much

there will always be. This evidence

of closeness, relativity, to etch

upon the fine glass instruments

of the heart. She turns to the tiny distances

of home, as points of reference —

spacing of photos on the mantelpieces,

brushes and comb upon a dresser.

From such angles, cosines, spaces

she will slowly try to measure

out to the stars. From this home address

in the realm of starry, vast forever

she paces out the length of earthliness —

the final, triangulated measurement

that verifies the rest.

note: d² = (X-x)² + (Y-y)² + (Z-z)² – c(T-t)²  is the formula for calculating the distance separating two events in space-time, according to Einstein’s theory of relativity. It extends the basic Pythagorean theorem (a² + b² = c²) from the two dimensions of a triangle drawn on a flat surface up to four dimensions.