Zeno’s Arrow

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Steve Harrison

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Zeno said that chopping time
into an infinite number of bits
proved that nothing could happen:
Achilles could not outrun a turtle;
an arrow could never reach its mark.

Zeno’s paradox baffled the rustics,
but pleased his teacher Parmenides,
who seemed to have glimpsed eternity,
where all things have happened already.

Centuries later Leibnitz and Newton
invented calculus to measure time.
Now we know that arrows move,
and that eight is a very big number,
though sometimes rather small,
for thinking makes it so.
Me, I’m a product of evolution,
a mammal with words and numbers,
musing on angels and the afterlife.
I measure time by counting
my chickens before they hatch
and partying till the cows come home,
always hoping that swallows
will soon return to Capistrano.

Chickens, cows, and swallows,
waiting, counting, and partying,
it all gets old and sad. I think Zeno felt it too,
when, twenty-five hundred years ago,
he proved that nothing ever happens.

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Steve Harrison has published poems in the Southern Humanities Review, South Carolina Review, Yakima, Uwharrie Review, Cold Mountain Review, and other journals and reviews. After retiring from a career in the software industry, he has taught English and world literature. He lives in Auburn, Alabama.

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