The Aether
by Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
All Rights Reserved 1998
The aether's there;
I'm not sure where--
Perhaps, it's in the stratosphere.
Aristotle philosophized:
It must be higher than the skies!
Else, what's up there between the stars?
Though Earth and Water, Air and Fire
Are layered as they most desire,
There must be something higher still
Because there really is no nil.
So through the cent'ries since he spoke
All types of men did go for broke
Trying to find that misty stuff.
The Christians speculated high
That God released it in His sigh;
It's what the angel's wings are made,
Or was it breathed in when we prayed?
The Alchemist searched here and there
And looked for it most everywhere;
Since so elusive was its place,
It must have quite a healing grace.
But no one found it in a vat,
(Not even from the wing of gnat);
The search continued, all in vain.
Then real science hit the scene
With a method and a scheme:
Distilling ether in a flask!
It had a pleasant smell and more:
Less dense was it than breathing Air,
Far finer spun than Angel Hair,
Anesthetized the surgeon's care...
This must be it! Or so they swore.
Alas, eureka's triumph call
Was not The Substance after all:
It lingered still, far out of reach.
When magnetism soon was found
By changed electric fluid's bound,
Speculation began anew
Still using reason, tried and true.
Since water waves are known quite well,
'Tis just the thing to break its spell;
A sinusoidal matter guess,
With eddies, currents, flow--no less!
There once was a man with a light
To measure Aethereal Right,
But to his dismay
It just wouldn't play--
More questions arose like a blight.
The yardstick, it shrunk with The Wind,
While Time took a Relative bend;
It didn't stop there
But really got weird:
The wave was a particle's friend!
Oh, please, you're confusing me muse,
Now Probables count as the Truths;
The particle track
Has just the right knack
To leave only wavicle clues.
So, now we no longer engage
In search for the talk of The Sage.
What quested once by all great men,
Is but a memory left to blend
Into a dark and mystic realm
Of foolish dreams at stupid helm.
I ask you this without a jest:
Should we abandon noble quest
For aether stuff to fill the gaps?
For Nothing circumambient
Means void is omnigatherent;
Does Naught, a causeless act right there,
Imply the aether's everywhere?
