We’ll Need New Articles for Einstein, Too
(23 April 2024)

Is it
Today
That’s Shakespeare’s birthday
That is
The christening day
By record of
The fact of birth

And if a construct
Then a construct with some very good
Actual
Details

A birthplace
A church
Parents
All the poetry
For
A first reputation

And some munificence
With which
To fund
Some future
With
Plays
Also a theatre
That burned
Down
And that they could
Build a stage again

A favorite of the queen
And then the king
Respected
No doubt also scorned
For envy
By
Peers of verse
Especially
Also of drama

A family
And a burial
Back
At the church
Near the altar
As a deal

And after checking
Mini-eons later
To find the skull
That held
The face
The
Mind
Like Yorick
Isn’t there

(proving something
proving nothing
Macbeth-
like
sound and fury)

Maybe to be set aside
Become
Einstein
Someone whom
We’ll argue for
In the same way
For
For future
Academics’ sakes

C L Couch


n.b. (I think well)

My christening
By the way
Waited a year and
A half

Oh
No
Grist for more
Speculation


Photo by Dalton Smith on Unsplash

23 April 1564
(looked it up—twenty-three score years ago)