2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #14: Zealots, Dabblers, Tyros, and Emeriti

Science isn’t the
photons we receive
from distant worlds
nor the
grains we collect
from powdery surfaces.
It isn’t the curves
that trace data points
nor the pdfs
and
stacks of paper
found on our drives
and in our cabinets.

Science is the
framework
of understanding
made by the
network
of zealots
and dabblers
and tyros
and emeriti.

Science depends on people,
which is beautiful
and terrible.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #13: Leading a Horse

Each has its own personality.
One a gracefully aging,
well tended giant—
a Kentucky Derby winner
now gently taking students
for a ride through pleasant spaces.
Another a cantankerous beast,
entering its dotage
with loving but poor caretakers.
Some thoroughbreds are so skittish
you can’t even approach
without the jockey facilitating any contact.

Tomorrow we take the reins,
and our mount seems sturdy.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #12: Waste

It seems oddly unfair
for light to travel
hundreds of
millions of
kilometers
from the Sun
to a tiny
black
object
and then return
hundreds of
millions of
kilometers
toward our telescope
only to be thwarted
by ten meters of cloud.

On the other hand
that light only spent
eighty minutes
making the trip
and the
one-hundred forty minutes
of “Attack of the Clones”
was a much
much
bigger waste of time.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #11: I Know and I Need

i know the sun
loves me no less
when it shines on the other
side of the world
and i know the stars
love me no less
when they spend months
close to the sun,
hidden from me
in its glow
i know this
yet i find
i need
to be reminded
periodically.



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Maybe a bit off theme, but it came to me more or less as is as I was waking up. 

2016 NaPoWriMo Post #10: Amnesty Bay Meteoritical Society Press Conference

“You’re all missing the
importance of this study”
the scientist said, furrowing her brow.
“We have shown
via a combination of
isotopic study,
mineralogy, and
textural analysis that
the Smallville parent body
was Earth-sized,
orbited an M-type star,
and disrupted via an internal process
not a giant impact.

The speculation as to
whether this planet
was inhabited,
let alone how
exposure to its debris
might affect life forms is
one sentence
in a much larger, compelling body of work.

We look forward
to finding more pieces
similar to Smallville,
and thank an anonymous
benefactor
who is financing a
citizen science project
to scour the Earth for more.”

A reporter shifted
uneasily
in his seat.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #9: Unfilled Manifest

We generate
more ideas
than we can use.
History is littered
with best-laid plans
passed by.

Apollo 19 and CRAF
Champollion and JIMO
Pioneer H and Mariner Mark II
and others without
Wikipedia pages to
tell their story.

Maybe the funding
was used for something useful,
though I haven’t the
heart to ask nor
the clearance to
find out.

2016 NaPoWriMo Poem #8: We Never See The Same Sky Twice

We never see the same sky twice.
No fixed mark, this maddening gyre.
And though it seems to swirl entire,
note: wanderers will blunder through
on retrograde and showy loops
before rejoining a forward track.
The Earth itself has shifted tack
since pyramid or henge aligned.
While looking up now we may find
a little bear has its tail pinned
but it will anon escape.
Even stars jostle on the charts
and inch along on ancient courses
a priceless herd of luminous horses
in an infinite pasture.

We never see the same sky twice
even with members of the same crowd.
And that’s not to mention clouds.



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Picture from http://www.mreclipse.com/Meteors/Leo01/Leo01gallery.html