The Three-Body Problem

by Edward Reilly

‘God does not exist!’ (Liu Cixin, The Three-Body Problem, p. 15)

St. Patrick holds up a handful of clover and sighs.
It had been a difficult year, the natives obdurate,
And that woman over in Kildare, herself stubborn
In her practicalities, unwilling to suffer his gabble.
Then, she is what she always is.

So many different herbs covering the four fields,
Flavouring the roasted fish laid out on the plate,
This middle county the plain filled with blossom
And the laughter of girls dancing on the sward.
They are what they always are.

Then remembers the long years far worse than this,
The anatomies of death speaking like ghosts:
There!’, he cries, “Take this and eat!’, flings
Three-lobed handfuls into the eastern wind.
He will be, as He always will.