low flight

Cast off the surly bonds of gravity;
embrace the joy awaiting us on high.
It's not enough to live life in 2-D
when once you've realized we're meant to fly.
A kite's a pretty minimal machine
a bargain, amortized on so much fun.
And as a sport, it's almost wholly green;
convection's driven--gratis--by the sun.
Uncircumscribed by stadium, or court,
with little but the wind for us to hear.
Apotheosis in the realm of sport!
We're only bounded by the atmosphere.
A pleasure long beyond the reach of kings
belongs to anyone who'll take to wings.

heavy

forever falling toward our lambent star
our tides alone acknowledge its vast pull
the lunar mass is not nearly as far
but heaps the oceans up when new, and full
the sum of sine curves, in and out of phase
one morning boats float less, one morning more
and seasides watch the come and go of waves
retreating and advancing on the shore
ten thousand generations didn't get
the simple law concealed in Nature's text
what Newton taught, what schoolboy could forget
the algorithm that makes forms complex
one inverse-square law, cosmic in its reach
keeps minds engaged while gazing at a beach

new eyes

EM telescopy's been good so far
in radio and x-ray and in light
by capturing the photons of a star
to chart the cosmic mysteries by night
as if our universe were only quarks
and other particles need not apply
we only looked up when the sky grew dark
and background wouldn't glut the naked eye
what undergirds the heavens' glitt'ring face
what doesn't call attention with its glow
but in between those stars is all of space
that doesn't shake electrons too and fro
four LIGO stations could map gravity
a view that optics couldn't ever see

is there anybody out there?

stray noises in the night elicit fears
when mind's deprived of input from our sight
we're ill-equipped to navigate by ears
scenarios abound that might be right
bats conjure up reality from sound
as tangible to them as light to us
their construct rests on just as solid ground
despite a wholly different stimulus
if Yoda learned to read gravity waves
his information stream cannot be blocked
abroad by day or in stygian caves
his data keep on coming 'round the clock
if all converge on one ontology
it's more than anyone's equipped to see        

LIGO II

the warp and weft of space-time resonate
a billion light-years from the stellar blast
if one takes pains enough to calibrate
no ref'rence frame is ever hard and fast
mere rock can't change the path of gravitons
no lens can focus them as you would light
a straighter shot than the fastest of guns
the spatial term falls out of time-of-flight
a novel sense augments our natal five
more alien than sonar used by whales
just frequency and when do they arrive
must carry their entire encoded tales
no glare of noon can dazzle LIGO's eye
a new telescopy surveys the sky

LIGO

the web of space-time rings like a great gong
a billion light-years from the stellar blast
as Einstein had assured us all along
no ref'rence frame is ever hard and fast
mere rock can't change the path of gravitons
no lens can focus them as you would light
a straighter shot than the fastest of guns
the spatial term falls out of time-of-flight
a novel sense augments our natal five
more alien than sonar chirps of whales
just frequency and when do they arrive
must carry their entire encoded tales
no glare of noon can dazzle LIGO's eye
a new telescopy surveys the sky

weighty matters

to mediate all gravity's effects
a particle from mass must perturb all
not merely when they're close enough for sex
or ev'ry time that apples chance to fall
and Symmetry allows its Anti-, too
repelling what it can't annihilate
a counterpart to Kepler's cosmic glue
imbuing everything with mass with weight
or spacetime may just dimple where there's mass
to act on passing light as would a  lens
like cushions take the imprint of an ass
our ref'rence frame itself is that which bends
refining how the universe behaves
our gravity equations may need waves