science

Good

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

you want a set of different words
more complex than
the one i offer.
you may have a string
of compliments sitting pretty
on the poster they made for you,
but strangers’ mouths
could never put forth
what i see every day.

i wish i could wipe the words
you imagine i might say
right out of your mind.
our exchange is a hushed whisper
in this semi-dark classroom;
there is no space, no time
to envelop the elegance of thought
you put forth in everything
that you do for them,
that you ask them to do for you.

good may not be the response
you walked across the school to hear;
but just as i cannot define its significance
in the midst of the chaos i face
every time i leave your classroom,
i cannot define the perfect peace,
the depth of knowledge,
or the admiralty of your daily lessons
with any word, or words,
that would be adequate.

Differences

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he is five like her
reaches to hold her hand
offers her bits of his lunch
and asks why
there are no dinosaurs on Mars
a moment after asking
what’s a planet?

he’s never been here before
nor read a book about Mars
or planets
doesn’t know what i mean
when i say, let’s visit this exhibit

i watch them chase each other
up and down escalators
she a little mixture of bossy, shy,
him thrilled and ever-curious,
and i think
how different their wealth of knowledge
must be,
how unaware they are
of each other’s differences.

Spider

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how venomous are you
with your crab-shell back,
your daintily long tan legs,
and your sparkling beauty
of a fly-trapping web,
waiting here for our
(lost search) discovery?

Constellation

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just when we have stars to search for
the clouds cover the sky
a gray-yellow windswept blanket
of cool air that blows
the fire’s ashes into our faces.

it breathes whining into their voices
but isn’t strong enough
to carry me away
on a blanket of puffy nighttime clouds
back to my home
my backbone
my place to be me.

in a mostly futile attempt
they hold their glittery black star papers
under the eerie blue light of
crank-up flashlights,
then shine them anxiously
into the night sky.

a few stars tease us
but not enough to create a constellation
and their rays of light
search the holes in the blanket
for the hope, the possibility
of seeing what we all know is not there.

Kingfisher

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along this suburban street,
my narrow tires sideswipe a kingfisher
hopping along the gutter
(an algae-encrusted pond
is just over the bank)

i think of you burning forests
in Kentucky, telling your baby
the names of all the songbirds,
pointing out the indigenous plants
(plucking the non-native species)

he doesn’t seem to fit in here,
pecking his way along with his
tall, built-for-fishing legs and the
beak made for water. i don’t
run him over, but i wonder

i wonder what you would
say of his presence in this arid
climate, at the same time priding
myself that i remember his species.
native? non-native? i couldn’t say.
but i think he will find his way.

Home at Last

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for a thousand miles
we see the reach of
the Mighty Mississippi,
the river we bought
for pennies on the dollar,
the river of dreams
(sometimes nightmares),
the river that feeds us all
and doesn’t feed us.

after cornfield gives way
to soybean field and
amber waves of wheat,
all i can think about are the bison
who ate and fertilized
this prairie, feeding
ten thousand generations
and yet
we destroy it
with unnecessary crops
feeding cattle that could
(and would) do the same as the bison.

as night gives in to day
we cross the border
and see cows in pasture
(home at last)
a truck with a Kentucky plate
(home at last)
and hope that one day
we will release
the native grasses
and allow the prairie
to be home at last.

Varying Shades

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

somehow
despite their travels on
long-sunken ships
they have nestled in amongst
those that are native

in varying shades
of the colors of God
(who you hope to meet one day),
they intertwine
their lacework leaves,
dot the sky with flowers
as bright as our imaginations,
and root out homes in
fantastical forests.

though you think that only
ugliness
breeds each time they reproduce,
for the rest of us
all we see is the beauty
that still exists in this world.

One Day

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Some people call me a hippie
not realizing
they’re being complimentary
because I’d rather be a hippie
who loves the earth
than a “conservative”
who does the opposite of conserving
the water that our children
will one day thirst for,
the ecosystems
that will one day
destroy the earth in their absence,
the (now demolished for mining) mountaintops
that one day inspired our ancestors.

Yes, I think a “dirty hippie”
whose feet carry the dust
of garden soil,
whose heart yearns for freedom
(our planet’s freedom)
whose soul aches to conserve
whatever it is we have left,
will one day be an admirable term.

Defining Potential

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Physics: stored energy
(marble at the top of the hill)
waiting for its chance to convert
into kinetics (move it baby)

Latin: potentia (power)
derived from potent
(being able) to do whatever
it is you have the potential to do.

Humans: we are the marbles
waiting at the top of the slope
for our chance to convert ourselves
into a movement that will change the world.

Momentum

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

in science we learn about momentum.
we watch videos of soap box derbies,
balls bouncing,
rockets blasting into space,
and the mathematical formula seems so simple:
mass times velocity equals momentum

but I am a linguist
and all I can think about is
the root movere,
to move
which is simpler to understand
and describes,
in its perfect infinitive form,
what you do to me.