Stuff and Nonsense

(A thing of little substance)
March 2008




From A to Z
it's clear enough:

the things you see
are made of Stuff.



Mount Everest
is made of stone,

your skeleton
is bits of bone,



a sidewalk painting's
only chalk,

a conversation?
mostly talk,



my "diamond" ring
is really glass --

a Counted noun
is made of Mass.



But whether it's
in rocks or rings,

that stuff is made
of many Things:



the Law's a bunch
of vexing rules,

your milk is full
of molecules,



Nature is
the bees and birds,

my poetry
is simply words --



in lumps or clumps,
in grams or pounds,

a Mass consists
of Countless nouns.



Which makes the question
fairly tough:

are we but Things,
or is we Stuff?



The curious
solution lies

at ultra-
microscopic size,



where teeny tiny
Things behave

as though they were
a kind of wave --



yet waves of Stuff
are Thing-ish too

(depending on
your point of view).



And that's the thought
I came to share:

duality
is everywhere.



From Z to A
and back to Z,

Stuff and Things
is all there be.