Here’s a falsifiable hypothesis: the same
Beast who starts out gloomiest before dawn
And gets progressively more upbeat until
Evening, nearly each and every day, composes
Brighter, more cheerful verses in the mornings
Than in the evenings or past midnight, when
Most of the beast’s compositions get done.
How is this falsifiable? Let’s take as a given
The well-established pattern of mood change
Throughout the typical day, certainly for this
Beast but probably common to many, maybe
Most of the species. Analyses of moods
On social media show much the same trend.
Then, giving that we have a set of thousands
Of texts composed by the same beast over
Several years, at all hours of the day, but
Primarily at night, we can retrospectively
Test our paradoxical hypothesis analytically.
And? The analysis refutes the null. Verses
Composed earlier in the daylight hours
Are significantly more likely to be cheerful,
Even silly, even absurdly pointless, just as this
Composition, overlooking gold cottonwood
And willow around the shining reservoir
In the midst of black lava, red and buff sandstone,
Under a stippled sky on a quiet morning, is.
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