If gravity is a force of attraction,

why does it keep us all so far away

from each other? When Isaac Newton

formed theories of motion, he was alone

at home, avoiding the Bubonic Plague,

the Great Plague, the Black Death

Plague, the Bring Out Your Dead Plague

because that’s all anyone was back then

before vaccines and hand soap and Purell

that’s out of stock anyway. It would be two

hundred years before scientists

determined what bacteria plotted

such a diabolical illness: skin turning black

with blood, filling pores, pouring

onto rat fleas to infect

the next victim. But no one knew

that, back then. Talk about living

in uncertain times. Back then,

there was no twenty second rule, no six

foot rule, no limit one toilet paper pack

per customer rule, only the rules

of physics we call laws

because they created order

from disorder, which the world probably

needed. And Newton made lots of laws:

creating early calculus while his room

was lit by candles instead of electricity,

looking through prisms to study
refractions of colors—signifying 

promise—to determine optics, lazing

beneath a tree and thinking how

all motion leads downward

or repels. Infinitesimal calculus

is the study of continuous

change, so what Newton really

hypothesized is a theory of

life because everything is changing:

plane fumes aren’t soaring so high

above ground like they used to,

the rivers in Italy look like water,

real water, & less gas in the sky

from cars mean people can breathe,

and everyone applauds the guy

who works at Wal-Mart because finally,

finally, we all see how his work is good

too, & I have to wonder, sitting at home

like Isaac Newton, quarantined and self-

isolated in self-pity while new

plagues ravage cities where I grew

up, eating everyone in the world whole:

if every action has an equal and opposite

reaction, then the budding growths

on the trees outside my window—

as the sky pours down

my windowsill—well, they must

be the Earth’s form of

                                balance.

Rebecca Mennecke is the editor of NOTA, and a writer and student in Eau Claire. “Hope is the Thing That Blossoms on Trees” was originally published by the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild as part of their “Hope is the Thing” Series. To read more pieces from“Hope is the Thing,” go to www.cvwritersguild.org.