And we stand upon this globe
Asking of the Universe
What?
Recognition?
Salvation?
Whatever you please
In it’s glory
(Shown by our ingenuity and craft
As we build orbital telescopes)
The Universe does not need us
Unless as an observer
Are we here simply to watch?
Look up, look up
Glory awaits
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Dunes
Rolling along the shore
Linear formation
Field of Dunes
Rounded and steep sloped
Not barren sand
But sheltering life
A sandy ecosystem
That
In turn
Holds down the drifting sand
Rolling along the shore
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Folk tales of little people abound
Retreating to the deep Earth
Now and then to emerge and engage
Ensnare or enslave
With trickery or with passion
Peripatetic you may have been
Leaving small trace of your lives
But deep in an African cave
We have found you
Naledi, little stars
We term the women who reclaimed you to the light
Underground astronauts
Yet you carried your beloved dead here
Through narrow clefts, over parlous depths
To lay them tenderly down to rest
As we stare into our deep past
And find you, Homo naledi
Those of us who wonder
Those of us who marvel
Are ensnared and enamoured
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
The discovery of fossils of a new human species (Homo Naledi) is, in itself, a fascinating story. But why they are so ‘cool’ is very well explained by our fellow blogger on Fossil History at https://fossilhistory.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/homo-naledi-why-these-fossils-are-so-friggen-cool/
National Geographic describes them as “A fully modern hand sported wackily curved fingers, fit for a creature climbing trees. The shoulders were apish too, and the widely flaring blades of the pelvis were as primitive as Lucy’s—but the bottom of the same pelvis looked like a modern human’s. The leg bones started out shaped like an australopithecine’s but gathered modernity as they descended toward the ground. The feet were virtually indistinguishable from our own.”
The “underground astronauts” (left to right): Becca Peixotto, Alia Gurtov, Elen Feuerriegel, Marina Elliott, K. Lindsay (Eaves) Hunter and Hannah Morris.
Chalklands
Chalk undulates across Southern England
Hills, gentle yet steep
Can be overtopped by clay peppered with flints
So treasured by the old folk
As old as the hills is true here
The chalk is a two hundred million year ocean
Stiffened and folded over time
By our living planet
Several human species
Have hunted in these valleys
Have dug into and sculpted these hills
Have left their ghosts for us to trace
The ancient monuments we treasure
Hill forts, stone circles, long barrows
Are but modern remnants
Compared to the first folk
My hills have deep roots
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”
― Ray Bradbury
The Smell of bees
I saw my first bee today, hearing buzzing while weeding
I searched for the little fellow and found him
Bumbling around the Lungwort
Buzzing with glee in the surprise warmth
Black, gold with a red bum
Furry and indomitable
He also harvests my garden
And mine depends on his
Its relief to see a bee today, with all the talk of their demise
Poisoned by chemicals that may yet kill us
Directly, as doses build, or indirectly
As my garden companions cease to pollinate
And harvests drop
The smell of small dusty bees
Will no longer tantalise my nostrils
Nor will the fragrance of food
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Another Monday, another watercolour. Here’s an Apollo Astronaut:
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Royal Edinburgh Observatory
Poor lost instrument, trapped in your tower
Where the dome never opens from year to year.
They no longer use you to search the heavens
Battered and bruised, missing parts, you lurk in the darkness of your cage
If only I could find glass plates, unwrap them in the dark, open the dome and set you free
Copyright © 2015 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Re-blogged from 2015.
Infall
Protons
Particles
Masses
Bathed
Photons
Neutrinos
Light is lifegiver and deathbringer
The open sky pretends to shield
But cannot fully
The vagaries of the universe
Plague our houses, peck out our DNA
Ozone and magnetosphere have allowed us to live
To evolve and think
Think ourselves safe
Knowledge is perhaps power
But it reveals destiny
Infalling rock
Or the next local supernova
And we are gone
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
Sweet Blood
By the numbers
Do I track my bodily betrayal
Silent sugars gnaw at me
Shorten my life, threaten my sight
My feet and so mobility
By the numbers
Media propaganda
Labels me guilty
A self inflicted pariah
Costing the state drugs, injections
By the numbers
I labour on
Researching the evidence
Counting the carbs
Pulling the weights
Five walks a week
Of thirty minutes each
Defying the numbers
My chosen path
And the numbers drop
My body may falter
But I shall not
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond
We are a brief bloom
On the fragile skin
Of a molten body
Encircling a massive furnace
We are a blossoming of sentience
With encrusted technologies
Craving wonder, hoping for company
Seeking knowledge and excitement
We truly are stardust
Our bodies built from atoms
Forged in successive stellar explosions
We crave the glories of the Universe
We are Human
Copyright © 2016 Kim Whysall-Hammond
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160510.html
