Second law

Barbara Cumbers

Heat cannot of itself pass from one body to a hotter body

It doesn’t seem to be about time at all, yet
it’s how we know time flows, or at least its direction.
You can video billiard balls all you like
but Humpty Dumpty doesn’t get back on the wall
and my arthritis doesn’t get better — cartilage
goes on getting thinner, disappearing into the ether
like order under the second law.
You can see it in a cup of tea as it cools, molecules
slowing down as if the cup were the universe
and Maxwell’s demon weren’t there working
to circumvent the law. Because something is.
I am here and you are here. Whales and viruses
are here. All the ordered structures that came
out of nowhere are here. All that is given me
about the world I’m growing old in, is moving
in the right direction, and I’m grateful for it,
your body against mine, heat moving between us.

The Science

The second law of thermodynamics is the only fundamental law that leads to time flowing in a certain direction, because it specifies that the entropy (the amount of disorder) of a closed system must always increase. This poem uses that concept, and Maxwell's thought experiment of a demon acting to contravene the second law. 

The Poet

Barbara Cumbers was born and lives in London. Now retired, she earned her living as an information officer and as a lecturer in geology. Her poems are focused on the natural world and mankind’s interactions with it. She has combined geology and poetry in many parts of Britain, particularly in the Lake District (Cumbria) and in the Shetland Isles. Her poems have appeared in various magazines and small press anthologies. Her first collection, A gap in the rain, was published by Indigo Dreams in 2016.

Next poem: Symphony by Amy Bilton