100% — Does It Exist?

For instance, this is now Autumn —
except some days it’s more like Summer
and other days bits of Winter creep in.
You can’t say ‘100% Autumn’,
not with real meaning; you can only say,
‘These are the official dates; the season
is this long, between here and here.’

Something more measurable, perhaps?
‘He ate 100% of that orange.’ No,
he didn’t. Not the rind, not the pips.
‘She lost 100% of her money.’ But
money is this imaginary thing
that we pretend is real. We even
give it physical form (sometimes;
for now) and yet what you lose
is the value it represents — which
is variable, artificially created. And truly,
someone will probably feed you, etc.

What about absolutes? 100% of nothing
is absolutely nothing. Only, like money,
there’s no such thing as nothing.
Go on, point to it! It is merely
an abstract concept with no reality.
Find me, if you can, one skerrick
of nothingness. It can’t be done.
And don’t be trying to blind me
with quantum physics. We live
in a Newtonian universe, which is all
filled up with something: many
pieces and kinds of something,
everywhere you look or listen or touch.

100% of everything? Ah —
that has credibility.
That’s logical (magickal). Look!
We can’t see how far
the Universe extends, and maybe
there are others beyond.
Maybe it never stops. We can’t
apprehend every detail. Nevertheless
everything, all there is, all of it,
100% — that makes sense. We can grasp it.
(Some of it literally.) It’s really there.

The building material of the Universe,
so we are told, is Love. I believe it.
(OK, this you might have to
take on trust.) Everything, then,
is Love. It makes the grass grow
and the planets move. And for sure I can say,
I love you — 100%.

April PAD Challenge #4: 100% [+ word or phrase]

Also submitted for Poets United Poetry Pantry #96