It’s Advancement of science week and, as such,  today’s  prompt is simply “science”.

I frequently include science facts & theories into my poems about human existence – no only chemical reactions work well as apt metaphors for human interactions – the are often realities that impact upon our experiences and realities that must be incorporated into any meaning of life we put forth.

Such as Carbon – we are a carbon-based life. And while it would be great if one day we find life based on some other foundation stone like silicon – here we think of carbon as “life”, we come from it, we utilize it, we exhale it.  …

Carbon

The world spins you at sixty-six thousand miles;
it wraps you around the sun from the moment of your birth.

You are traveling, my friend,
even standing still
you are flying amongst the stars
looming towards Lyra,
venturing out past Vega,
you are constant movement, the second of the Galactic clock;
a gear everything might hang on.

There was a reason you were born
there is a reason why you take water within,
feed on flesh and fruit,
why your lungs bring in oxygen
exhale a breath for the trees;
you are an essential part of the universe
your mind directs the electrons, compose everything.

While you are standing there, archeologists are studying you
looking through future wormholes, like tapes on fast forward –
You are a will-o-wisp! –
like a moon pulling on the sea –
you are a celestial pendulum
moving too too fast, wrapping the sun all up
and hurling a spiral arm around.

You spin the world at sixty-six miles per hour;
a gear everything might hang on.

 

This poem is included in the soon-to-be-released anthology On The Platform, Waiting.  It came to me a little after a family trip to Pine Mountain Observatory. I am intrigued by astronomy – and of course, I wanted my sons to be too. During the evening session, there was a time when we were just laying on the mountain op, watching the sky move as the astronomer was teaching us of what the stars reveal of the speed of our spin. And I became very attuned to that speed – to the point that I, suspectable to motion sickness – got car-sick.

Honestly, I am still sensitive and feeling the spin of our Home to this day.

 

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