Cosmic Gall von John Updike
Neutrinos, they are very small.
They have no charge and have no mass*
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
To them, through which they simply pass,
Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
Or photons through a sheet of glass.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
Cold shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
And scorning barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me! Like tall
and painless guillotines, they fall
Down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
and pierce the lover and his lass
From underneath the bed-you call
It wonderful; I call it crass.
They have no charge and have no mass*
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
To them, through which they simply pass,
Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
Or photons through a sheet of glass.
They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
Cold shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
And scorning barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me! Like tall
and painless guillotines, they fall
Down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
and pierce the lover and his lass
From underneath the bed-you call
It wonderful; I call it crass.
Aus: Telephone Poles and Other Poems, John Updike, Knopf, 1960, gefunden in der aktuellen Ausgabe des – übrigens kostenfreien – Symmetry Magazine, herausgegeben vom FERMILAB (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory) sowie vom SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
* In der Physik geht man diesbezüglich mittlerweile vom Gegenteil aus.
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