What the Sciences Sing to Us

THE SCIENCES SING A LULLABYE
Physics says: go to sleep. Of course
you're tired. Every atom in you
has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes
nonstop from mitosis to now.
Quit tapping your feet. They'll dance
inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch
by inch America is giving itself
to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness
lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch.
You aren't alone. All of the continents used to be
one body. You aren't alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow,
Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle,
Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so
Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town
and
History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.
- Albert Goldbarth


thank you, Whiskey River

Food for Thought - The Zodiac

I don't believe in the Zodiac.  Having said that, I do think it's a lot of fun and, over the years, it seems that I've incororated my classification in the Aquarius sun sign as part of my idea of myself.  After all, this is the Age of Aquarius, right?  Well, recently, the powers that be decided to redo the Zodiac - heresy!  My friend and fellow Aquarian, Belinda Rubens, sent me this poem yesterday that a friend wrote for her after someone mistakenly identified her as a Capricorn:


                                          

                                            Dear ______, tho I would not mind
                                           To write my name upon the line
                                           Of Capricorn's great list.

                                           Yet fate would have it otherwise;
                                            I cannot take another guise
                                            From that the gods do wist.

                                            'Twas accidental conjugation
                                            Of parents on the old plantation
                                            That set my date of birth.

                                            Young they were, and lusty, too
                                            When they lay them down and knew
                                            The oldest joy on earth.

                                            So nine month later from that time
                                            When long sere cornstalks sparked with rime
                                            I gave my natal cry.

                                            Cold it was, and all did shiver
                                            Across the Mississippi River
                                            In the City of Memphi.

                                            I, a first born, greeted raptest
                                            In the hos-pit-al called Baptist
                                            Came upon the earth.

                                            Since Zodiacal signs be various
                                            I came into this life Aquarius;
                                            Thus was it at my birth.

                                            And tho there be among Aquarians
                                            Anabaptists and Rotarians
                                            There also be those that follow:

Then there is along list of Aquarian luminaries including Lord Byron, Paul Newman and Babe Ruth.

My attitude is, "they" can change whatever they want - from now forward.  But they can't go back and make folks who have aligned themselves under a sign for upteen years to now be something else.  Tain't right!  So hurray for all sun signs, but especially Aquarius!

Food for Thought: Christmas Day 2010

Woodblock Print by Tsuchiya Koitsu, Suijin, Woods in the snow along the Sumida River, Tokyo

Christmas Sparrow

The first thing I heard this morning, was a rapid, flapping sound, soft, insistent…
wings against glass (as it turned out) downstairs,
where I saw a small bird
rioting in the frame of a high window
trying to hurl itself through
the enigma of glass into the spacious light.

Then a noise in the throat of the cat,
who was hunkered on the rug,
told me how the bird had gotten inside,
carried in on the cold night
through the flap of the basement door,
and later released from the soft grip of teeth.
On a chair, I trapped its pulsations in a shirt
and got it to the door,
so weightless it seemed to have vanished
into the nest of cloth

But outside, when I uncupped my hands
it burst into its elements
dipping over the dormant garden
in a spasm of wingbeats
then disappeared over a row of tall hemlocks.

For the rest of the day I could feel its wild thrumming against my palms
as I wondered about the hours it must have spent
pent in the shadows of that room,
hidden in the spikey branches of our decorated tree, breathing there
among the metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,
its eyes wide open, like mine as I lie in bed tonight
picturing this rare and lucky sparrow
tucked in a holly bush now
a light snow tumbling through the windless dark.

—Billy Collins

from the Parabola Newsletter, December 17, 2010

Food for Thought: Robert Frost

Oh, how I love Robert Frost!  He's one of my favorite poets, if not the favorite.  This poem is especially apropos on this rainy Memphis day, which comes on the heels of a dry, dry summer:

Our Hold on the Planet

We asked for rain. It didn't flash and roar.
It didn't lose its temper at our demand
And blow a gale. It didn't misunderstand
And give us more than our spokesman bargained for;
And just because we owned to a wish for rain,
Send us a flood and bid us be damned and drown.
It gently threw us a glittering shower down.
And when we had taken that into the roots of grain,
It threw us another and then another still,
Till the spongy soil again was natal wet.
We may doubt the just proportion of good to ill.
There is much in nature against us. But we forget;
Take nature altogether since time began,
Including human nature, in peace and war,
And it must be a little more in favor of man,
Say a fraction of one percent at the very least,
Or our number living wouldn't be steadily more,
Our hold on the planet wouldn't have so increased.



Green tomatoes at the PAR garden