NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 8: The Neighbor Girl

I've been wondering about the neighbor girl.
She's so obviously bright
but I think she had a turbulent past.
It's hard to get through and see
what she's really about.

I know she used to see someone--
it seemed serious.
But I think that ended a while ago.
Some friends checked on her and said
she's still steaming.
Maybe we should drop by ourselves?

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 7: Consolation

There are uncounted ways
things could have gone
wrong for us
here.
Too red a sun
or too blue,
too weak a magnetic field,
too little ozone.

This could be a
more violent
neighborhood,
niceties aside,
or Jupiter could have been
a party-crasher,
sending Mercury rising.

This is, admittedly,
little consolation
for the passenger pigeon.

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 6: We mostly fail

We mostly fail,
with uncontrolled controls
and undetected impurities.
We fail with bugs hidden
in uncommented code
and non-negligible effects
neglected anyhow.
We fail from changing skies
and sub-standard standard stars.

We fail by misestimating costs,
we fail by misapprehending risks,
we fail by overselling our instruments,
we fail by letting ourselves
be rushed
and pressured
and talked into things.

We mostly fail,
and we mostly know it.

But when we succeed
we know that, too.

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 5: Time Crunch

A million-year process,
droplets of molten beginnings
circle a diminishing gyre
as a center tries to hold.

Ice melts, iron rusts.

Twenty-nine days
at the telescope
over a dozen years.
Clouds, ice, wind,
and glorious skies.

Drives fill, students graduate.

How can I not find
two hours
to finish this paper?

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 4: Gravity never fails but it can be bested

Gravity never fails
but it can be bested
if only for short times
and only certain scales.

Indeed, we can test it
and where strong sunlight shines
we can look at details
of how particles rested.

The charging of the fines
moves them from hills to vales,
craters left congested
with past levitation's shrines.

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 3: Wander Lonely from the Cloud

alone
always alone
the sun a rumor,
parental warmth
negligible.

who gave the push
is unknown
perhaps unknowable
but there is
always a pusher.

some jump in
skin flayed by
volatility
as we gawk at their slow demise
and record it all
for posterity
for science.

but so many
others
slip surly bonds and
wander lonely
from the cloud
unlamented,
undetected.

NaPoWriMo 2014, Post 2: Search

Would we know them if we saw them?
We are trained,
inculcated
to expect cylinders
landing in New Jersey,
prime numbers from Vega.

With each paper
we find ourselves
closer to
further from
the answer.
Super-earths and nano-cubes
are belied by firm fact
and absence of evidence.
Still plans continue to explore
Oak Island
on Mars
or Europa
or Titan.
There's a hunch the game's not over
even if they're not inside the room.

Dragon-born, we send semiprimes
and Chuck Berry
but our planet leaks Baywatch.
Do they love Lucy?