Magnitudes

By Howard Nemerov 1920–1991 Howard Nemerov

Earth’s Wrath at our assaults is slow to come

But relentless when it does. It has to do

With catastrophic change, and with the limit

At which one order more of Magnitude

Will bring us to a qualitative change

And disasters drastically different

From those we daily have to know about.

As with the speed of light, where speed itself

Becomes a limit and an absolute;

As with the splitting of the atom

And a little later of the nucleus;

As with the millions rising into billions—

The piker’s kind in terms of money, yes,

But a million² in terms of time and space

As the universe grew vast while the earth

Our habitat diminished to the size

Of a billiard ball, both relative

To the cosmos and to the numbers of ourselves,

The doubling numbers, the earth could accommodate.

We stand now in the place and limit of time

Where hardest knowledge is turning into dream,

And nightmares still contained in sleeping dark

Seem on the point of bringing into day

The sweating panic that starts the sleeper up.

One or another nightmare may come true,

And what to do then? What in the world to do?

Source: Trying Conclusions: New and Selected Poems 1961-1991 (1992)

Biography

Howard Nemerov was a highly acclaimed poet often cited for the range of his capabilities and subject matter, "from the profound to the poignant to the comic," James Billington remarked in his frequently quoted announcement of Nemerov's appointment to the post of United States poet laureate. A distinguished professor at Washington University in St. Louis from 1969 to 1990, Nemerov wrote poetry and fiction that managed to engage . . .

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