Science Poetry

Our Dear Sun

They used to call you Aten

You golden yellow sphere

You reign supreme above our heads

Your power we must fear.

Your distance from our little earth

Is said to be just right

Not too distant or to near

For just enough heat and light.

You control the rate of flow

Of surface energy

Wind and clouds and rain and snow

And currents out at sea.

You also exert your control

On the way we work and play

From icy roads to beachfront camps

Or the sailboat in the bay.

Some of us are overcome

By the power of your rays

Exposed cells are baked and burnt

On those lovely sunny days.

My dear majestic Aten...

We'll always need your energy

To sustain our biosphere

So rise up! EVERY MORNING, star!

We're so glad you're still up there.

--by Peter Elias

CARBON CONNECTION

Carbon comes in many forms

Hard as diamond, soft as soot

Coal or graphite when we write

And fancy fullerine to boot.

Carbon chains are straight or branched

Or closed to form a ring

Organic compounds these are called

Parts for life they bring.

Coal and oil and fuel gas

Once mined they have much worth

These reservoirs of energy

Were once alive on earth.

When carbon joins with oxygen

It's either two or one

The double causes drinks to fizz

The single one? you're gone.

I mean carbon dioxide's fairly good

Most days it is our friend

But carbon monoxide's something else

One miss can mean the end.

--by Peter Elias

To the Moon

"O, thou."

--CLAUD HALCRO.

BLESS thy bright face! though often blessed before 

By raving maniac and by pensive fool;

One would say something more-- but who as yet,

When looking at thee in the deep blue sky,

Could tell the poorest thought that struck his heart?

Yet all have tried, and all have tried in vain.

At thee, poor planet, is the first attempt

That the young rhymster ventures. And the sigh

The boyish lover heaves, is at the Moon.

Bards, who -- ere Milton sung or Shakspeare played

The dirge of sorrow, or the song of love,

Bards, who had higher soared than Fesole,

Knew better of the Moon. 'T was there they found

Vain thoughts, lost hopes, and fancy's happy dreams,

And all sweet sounds, such as have fled afar

From waking discords, and from daylight jars.

There Ariosto puts the widow's weeds

When she, new wedded, smiles abroad again,

And there the sad maid's innocence -- 't is there

That broken vows and empty promises,

All good intentions, with no answering deed

To anchor them on the substantial earth,

Are shrewdly packed. -- And could he think that thou,

So bright, so pure of aspect, so serene,

Art the mere storehouse of our faults and crimes?

I'd rather think as puling rhymsters think,

O; love-sick maidens fancy -- Yea, prefer

The dairy notion that thou art but cheese,

Green cheese --than thus misdoubt thy honest face.

Symphony of science