The lone quantum bit,
unlike Frost, chooses both paths –
interferes with self.
The literary reference in this haiku is to Robert Frost’s poem:
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
The physics reference is to particle-wave duality whereby a photon or sub-atomic particle can behave simultaneously as if it were both a particle and a wave, and taking both paths interferes with itself (as does indecision for an individual).
What more do you want in a structured, seventeen-syllable poem.
BARD OF MARS 