Category Archives: Science

Rocks

March 3, 2018beauty, England, philosophy, poem, Poetry, Science, science poetrybeauty, geology, Life, poem, poetry, rocks, science, science poetry, space, time, travelThe Cheesesellers Wife

Unimaginably ancient, preserving moments in time;
billion year old pebbles from unknown floods
bones fallen into an ancient abyss
ten thousand year old footprints along an English estuary.
Sitting on a rock, you touch time.

Rocks move. They melt and set, erode to dust
and then the dust settles
forms new rock over time almost unimaginable.
This undulating plain formed at great depths
was thrust up to mountainous heights
now lies placid for your walking comfort.

Go find a rock
and travel in time and space.

Brief bloom

February 28, 2018astronomy, beauty, cosmology, Life, nature, philosophy, poem, Poetry, Science, Science Fiction Poetry, science poetry, speculative poetryastronomy, Earth, environment, hope, humanity, Life, NASA, nature, Science Fiction, Science Fiction Poetry, science poem, science poetry, solar system, space, speculative poetry, sun, Technology, travel, volcanoThe Cheesesellers Wife

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

Re-blogged from last year

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160510.html

A poem by Richard Feynman

January 31, 2018poem, Poetry, Science, science poetryGuest poem, philosophy, physics, poem, poetry, Richard Feynman, science poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Richard Feynman was not only a brilliant physicist but one of the 20th Century’s great thinkers. He also loved playing pranks and thumbing his nose at authority. And, he wrote poetry!

Collecting Reality

There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison

Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.

Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the Sun
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar.

Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.

Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.

Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in…

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Physics Lecture

January 20, 2018astronomy, cosmology, nature, poem, Poetry, Science, science poetryastronomy, mathematics, maths, physics, poem, poetry, quantum, Schrödinger, science poetry, UniversityThe Cheesesellers Wife

Equations straggle across the blackboards
dance and shimmer
spill understanding and enlightenment
making the strange world of quantum
less of a confusement
less of a set of contradictory statements.
Now you see it now you don’t.
Was Schrödinger’s cat truly there/not there?
The equations say Yes
as they are folded into Hilbert space
and all becomes obvious.
Even to our post party undergraduate brains.

……remembering back to University………

Solar Flares

January 4, 2018astronomy, beauty, cosmology, Life, poem, Poetry, Science, science poetryastronomy, cosmology, Earth, Life, physics, science, science poetry, sky, solar flare, sunThe Cheesesellers Wife

I do like poems with an Astronomical bent, and here’s a wonderful one from Paul F. Lenzi:

Poesy plus Polemics

SolorFlare “Solar Flare” by Dan Oliver

particle storms

shriek at inhuman

inaudible frequency

penetrate matter

lase holes through

the bones of minds

living and dead

mark acutely

the genomes of

all cosmic creatures

yet to be born

with the warning

that even the sun

is disposed to

explosions of rage

From my books Pieces of Wine and Legacies (vol.2)

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Bones

December 6, 2017archeology, poem, Poetry, Science, science poetryarcheology, history, humanity, Life, poem, poetry, prehistory, science, science poetryThe Cheesesellers Wife

Slender bones, delicately traced
staring grinning skulls.
No skin, no muscle,
no eyes, no heart or other parts.
Yet they tell a knowing eye many tales
of wounds healed, muscle strengths,
diseases and battles fought.
Indications of the life lived
and sometimes the death faced.

Visitor

October 29, 2017astronomy, cosmology, poem, Poetry, ScienceA/2017 U1, astronomy, cosmology, interstellar, science, science poem, spaceThe Cheesesellers Wife

Visitor from afar,
tracked by orbital telescopes
calculated trajectory indicating
an extra solar origin.
She is dropping past and zooming out.

Rock studded ice lump
possibly formed without a mother sun
in the darknesses between stars.
Interplanetary orphan,
we have only just spotted you.
Where are the others?

In honour of object A/2017 U1 , now visiting our solar system from who knows where.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A/2017_U1

Ridgeway

September 16, 2017archeology, Ghosts, history, Life, poem, Poetry, Sciencearcheology, Avebury, poem, poetry, prehistory, Ridgeway, Stone age, stone circles, WaylandThe Cheesesellers Wife

Tombs, forts and settlements
String the Ridgeway
As beads on a necklace
Testifying to ancient use
Above the spring line and refreshment
On a hot Summers day
The white chalk is hard walking
Reflecting sunlight back onto the traveller
When wet, millennia of churning feet and wheels
Have crafted a deep sucking cloying mudclay
Is it true that you continue on and under the sea?
A road so old that it predates the English Channel
Is humbling

Walking from the great stones of Avebury
Up through fields to the ridgeline
Following in the steps of so many
Stumbling in snow through ramparts
Thrown up three thousand years ago
Passing where the Smith of the Norse gods
Will shoe tethered horses
Looking down on the rolling plain
Or trudging deep within the occasional copse
Fires my imagination
Brings to mind stories, legends
Archaeological finds and study

Topiary

August 31, 2017archeology, garden, poem, Poetry, Science, science poetryarcheology, Guest poem, humanity, Neolithic, poem, poetry, prehistoryThe Cheesesellers Wife

A map in a foreign language is a misheard story.
The path broken by translation. The betrayal of truth
That slips in, knife-quick, between the fireside and the forgetting,
Stripping the stones of all but cautions to take care
As you step between the constructed cracks, the topiary-shaded grass,
Of gardens grown from the bones of unremembered past.

The paper creases with the the grim grip of disappointment,
Lines bend and meld together, new tracklines between
The dead-living things. And so, new stories begin.

Time has slid away from you here,
Paths well trodden and unseen through the depth of years,
Local tales sing little of your legacy,
The trail an ephemeral, skin-thin thing;
Your mounds made a mockery, mirrored in suburban topiary.

Penelope Foreman

From her blog ‘Suspicious Mounds’

Source: Archaeopoetry #3 – Topiary

Seal

July 27, 2017archeology, art, nature, poem, Poetry, Sciencearcheology, art, history, humanity, Life, Nunalleq, poem, poetry, prehistory, sealThe Cheesesellers Wife

Liquid eyes looking through time, staring out from the wood
Lost possession, unregarded litter, draft for a larger work?
It is treasure now
Seal eloquently sealed into timber
Sparse lines, rich artistry

I’ve just discovered an interibfng wordpress arceological site amd was moved to write the above poem after looking long at a seal carving they have found.

https://nunalleq.wordpress.com/

https://nunalleq.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/artefact-of-the-day-july-25th/

Nunalleq is the name of an archaeological site in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region of Southwestern Alaska. The University of Aberdeen Department of Archaeology, in partnership with the village corporation Qanirtuuq, Inc. and the Yup’ik Eskimo village of Quinhagak, Alaska, is working to record archaeological sites threatened by rising sea levels along the Bering Sea.

Nunalleq means ‘the OldVillage’ in Yup’ik. Previous years excavations (2009 & 2010) reveal that this ‘old village’ dates back at least 700 years. It is a multi-period prehistoric (or precontact) Yup’ik winter village site.