Zeno’s Impossible Poppadum
When I first met Zeno’s Paradox, I was intrigued
by its infinite subdivision of time and space!
Later, we laughed at Stoppard’s philosopher,
whose glib contention was that St Sebastian died
of fright, not reached and pierced by arrows.
Do you remember that we had our own paradox,
‘Zeno’s Impossible Poppadum’? As we waited
for our food, Jalfrezi, Tandoori, steamed rice,
we would while away the time in lovers’ chatter,
happy, share our plans for our shared future.
I remember we would split our last poppadum
carefully in half, in half again, and yet again.
As the waiter arrived with the tray of food,
to lay out our meal with a flourish, we would
tease and bicker still over the fragments.
I used to think that love was inexhaustible,
that, no matter how it may dwindle, by half,
by half again, by half yet again, again, again,
some vestige, some essence, must remain,
to be resurrected by incremental reversal,
to recover, retrieve, regrow love again.
How wrong-headed, wasteful, naïve I was.
There is no permanence, no reality that lasts,
no truth in the proposition that love can be
subdivided infinitely and survive.
Amanda Brookfield
