Our strange stay here on Earth

We did not ask for this
we cannot control what we must
we can only rise to the times
and do what we see as right.
There is no one there to listen
no parent in the sky
we are the author of our souls
the believer in our faith
children of the universe.
Intellect and compassion?
Built solely from an interplay of atomic particles
our strange stay here on Earth
the true miracle of chance and physics

Copyright © 2016 Kim Whysall-Hammond

This poem was inspired by reading:

I have not asked for life.
But I try to accept whatever
life brings without surprise.
And I shall depart again without having
questioned anyone about my strange
stay here on earth.

Omar Khayyam

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Occasionally, some of your visitors

Space Within

Considering the expanding universe and ultimate cooling, I pause
remembering photos of star birth amid nebulosity,
nuclear furnaces blossoming.

Telescopes in orbit or secluded in foreign deserts
produce pictures in lights we cannot see
show immensities in glorious un-colours.

In the back garden, I look up, past scudding clouds,
watch coloured pinpricks arrayed over black sky
with occasional satellites twinkling by beneath.

Feeling the breeze, green with trees, redolent with life
thinking of all those things we cannot see
here and all the way up there.

Copyright © 2018 Kim Whysall-Hammond

Brief bloom

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

Re-blogged from last year

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

Solar Flares

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

Poesy plus Polemics

“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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Slow Dance

My land was carved in a slow dance
Glacier in, glacier out
Wind and rain overly the slow dance
Smoothing smoothing
The rhythm of climate is our slow dance
Beat heats up, beat cools down
Industry changed the tempo of Earth’s slow dance
Faster faster, hotter hotter
We all move to the rhythm of this slow dance
Species come and species go
The way it has always been………..

 

Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond

Caught

I am caught in the grip of wonder
The balance and symmetry of mathematics
The glints and sparkles of a spiders many eyes
The shimmering dance of subatomic particles
The everyday  terrible beauty of our Earth
Look at the way a chickens feathers catch the light
Look at the reflections on that puddle
Look at how the road undulates ahead
How car headlights reveal different things
In the depth of the darkness
How light reflects to give
A rainbow in that roadside oil spill

Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond

The other nations of this Earth

The other nations of this Earth

The other nations of this Earth live along side us
Misunderstood, undervalued, used and abused
So many of us not longer see them
We fortunate few may wilfully misunderstand
But many see the truth, see the power and strength
Even in a hen, blackbird or crow
Animals are the other nations of this Earth
Caught in the net of time
Travellers with us on this one green globe

Copyright © 2017  Kim Whysall-Hammond

 

“….the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
~ Henry Beston