Max

arthritis made Max Planck stoop on his cane
each year his chin hung closer to the ground
his creaky skeleton bore the great brain
that stretched the world's intellectual bounds
Black Body Radiation cracked the door
that classical descriptions must make way
before he died, we'd learnt a whole lot more
and where the really vexing problems lay
he lived to see Hiroshima laid low
by forces that his teachers couldn't dream
and watched two German empires come and go
the way of horse-drawn carriages and steam
it seems unjust his lifetime's subtle works
got over-shadowed by a patent clerk's