Turning

Apollo's chariot's around the mark
accelerating back the way he'd come.
It's not yet cold, but shadows stretch out dark,
and bones grow porous for the dearth of sun.
Midwinter's child grew tall, and went to school
--So long's elapsed, some details have grown vague--
just tagging home to mark each festive Yule,
until his college battened down for plague.
Away from pious claims that"God's the Cause"
as if Aquinas truly could have known,
celestial motions point to deeper laws
that now, we all acknowledge as his own.
We congregate with friends, this darkest night
to celebrate the lord who shattered light.

Summer vision

The twilight etches cliffs in stark relief;
a foreground bonsai focuses the scene.
MDMA inclines me toward belief
that someone understands just what I mean.
The atmosphere is scattering the Blue
to stain the cloud-deck many shades of red.
A vignette shared in empathy with you,
and all the moly coursing through our heads.
If I could conjure such a scene in verse,
I wouldn't so despair that I can't draw.
But knowing that I can't, I feel accursed;
no other mind could know quite what I saw.
An isolated mind resents it's plight
preferring to insist we've shared this sight.

rosh hashanah

By equinox, Orion's high and bright
reminding us it's time to sharpen skis.
Free calendar republished night by night
for those mistrustful of technologies.
The StarLink constellation's something new;
Koheleth scowls, but nothing's to be done.
Illuminated just before dawn's due
Aloft, but plainly well beneath the sun.
Few city dwellers ever get to know
that Nature can't be bounded in a park.
Bedazzled by the artificial glow
they lose the wonderment of primal Dark.
A glimpse of sky sets poets' minds ablaze
as much at night as on the bluest days.

reflecting

One swallow skims the surface gobbling flies,
and his reflection rises to the bait.
His likeness and his image, hue and size;
Narcissus and his true-love strain to mate.
Another world, the twin to this, our own,
just one of many painted by Monet.
What strange Intelligence might call it "home"
Is more than 4-D mortal man can say.
Two worlds encounter at the mirror-plane
Or so 'twould seem, exchanging left for right
it took a Snell to lucidly explain
the symmetry of such reflected light.
String theorists insist on seven more
dimensions, but can't make clear what they're for.

solipsist

Two swallows loop and swoop and bill and bond,
as if between the twain, they shared one mind.
A pas de deux split by the glassy pond;
this pair are  closest kin, and more than kind.
A mirror cosmos, swapping left for right,
accessible at water's interface.
Insensible to scent, but plain to sight
might fill--like ours--infinity of space.
Each swoop, the partner's there to keep the date,
no straying eye could tease the pair apart.
Narcissus and his true-love strain to mate;
four wings in sync beat to a single heart.
To love the Other like one's self seems right,
but this one's just a trick of bending light.

Everything is Illuminated

One swallow skims the surface swooping low,
and his reflection rises to the bait.
His likeness and his image, head-to-toe;
Narcissus and his true-love strain to mate.
Another world, the twin to this, our own,
just one of many painted by Monet.
What strange Intelligence might call it "home"
Is more than 4-D mortal man can say.
Two worlds encounter at the mirror-plane
Or so 'twould seem, exchanging left for right.
It took a Snell to lucidly explain
the symmetry of such reflected light.
String theorists insist on seven more
dimensions, but can't make clear what they're for.

nativity

past Winter solstice comes the natal day
when commerce pauses, and the hearthfires glow
and kindred gather whereever they've strayed
and no on has an urgent place to go
we  celebrate the birthday of a son
defying length'ning shadows of the Dark
and heap our aspirations on the One
who in maturity will leave his mark
the interim lapsed in obscurity
careers embarked but eftsoon laid aside
the tale resumes when he's near thirty-three
and neighbors wonder if he'll take a bride
just when the dwindling days had seemed to stall
sir Isaac Newton cast light on us all

powered

The Ozone layer shields us from UV
absorbing photons in its short-wave slot.
Those photons leave behind their energy;
each daylong hour, the tropopause gets hot.
Earth's shadow cuts that flow off every night;
black-body radiation cools Earth's face.
IR flows out, that had in-come as light
a tepid ember radiates towards space.
Beneath, it's sport to soar the troposphere
where heating's driven by warm Earth below.
convecting thermals get me out of here
be it from foot-launch, or from aero-tow.
The solar fusion-pile supplies the drive
that makes a pilot feel that they're alive.

Noach M

To differentiate what had been white
God wrought His rainbow out of rain and wrack.
New gorgeous ornament to Primal Light
as subtly different frequencies refract.
Through Genesis, the drumbeat was "divide"
as Dark from light, and He from She was cleft.
So Eve was formed from what had been one side,
and Adam from the tissue that was left.
Now, Noah's told again to multiply
--at least until his seed have filled the Earth.
But what had seemed to all be unified's
revealed--to opened eyes--to be diverse.
Brave new Beginning--mercy tempers laws--
accommodates humanity's strange flaws.

Noach N

A year elapsed, his ark rode out the Flood
distinctions were erased from high and low
to run aground at last, when all was mud.
A new Beginning, where a world might grow.
New Separations! This time, based on hue
like a the first, when God split Dark from Light.
Now, Noach sees distinctly red from blue
no more undifferentiated white.
Erratically, we struggle to progress,
and only information's really gained.
Material subsides back to the mess.
But--incrementally--the world's explained.
Ten generations on, He'll try again
this time, selectively, with chosen men.

red-shift

ben-Uziel could roast a bird in flight
if it flew by while he was deep in prayer
his comm-link's collimated hot and tight
too bad for anyone intruding there.
With Moses only, God spoke face to face
and he concealed his beams behind a veil
for no one since him has that been the case
more often, calls rejected, e-texts fail.
"no more than one"'s the formula that Jews
agree for God, but He won't intervene
within the laws of nature, we can choose
but what's divine is neither heard, nor seen.
Attenuated with the passing time
God's messages grow dim (but they still rhyme)

aftermath

the overriding mass of warm, moist air
produces rain that freezes on contact
a wonderland in crystal armor fair
each twig a prism in which light refracts
a static glory, stilllife set in glass
but wind and gravity are twin landmines
bare trees were not designed for so much mass
and some will crash down on our powerlines
perspective tints our view of such a scene
a landlord waiting for maintenance crews
might feel the splendid landscape not as keen
as transients without a stake to lose
what's Truth? what's Beauty? it's so hard to say
so much looks different each passing day

first steps

the green light chlorophyl disdains to use
announces that our crops are in good health
but it's by sucking up the reds and blues
that it contributes to a farmer's wealth
two photons per electron share the weight
promoted out of water's cozy well
as waste, free oxygen to liberate
the quantum yield's not huge, but what the Hell
molecular machines are in the news
but--so far--there's less substance here than noise
compared to what a chloroplast would use
this Chemistry Nobel rewarded toys
before photovoltaics were the rage
a blue-green alga launched the solar age

Fall

the creeping Dark trims daylight at both ends
each sunset hastens and each daybreak lags
the radiation on which life depends
diminishes as harvest season drags
the change is swiftest at the equinox
between the solstices, more and more night
fair-weather sailboats hauled out in drydocks
acutely conscious of the waning light
new freshmen navigating the old school 
undreaming how much it is they don't know
but sure their generation defines "cool"
seem woefully unready for first snow
the leaves are fading, falling from the trees
as thoughts are turning to rewaxing skis

unwoven rainbows

atomic spectra bar-code distant stars
to keep the inventory of the gods
their chemistry's the same, both near and far
(unless it's anti-matter 'gainst all odds)
Ed Hubble showed the farther ones look red
no matter which direction one might scan
where astronauts are never gonna tread
they're all receding from the gaze of man
the subtle deltas quantum states allow
affirm that they're invariant with space
and constants measured in the here-and-now
can still be trusted in that far-off place
since Newton picked apart the rays of light
we've found new eyes to probe the depths of night

glint

the setting sun gilds wave-crests on the Bay
a regal foot-path into the far West
a fleeting vision at the close of day
of Phaeton putting his horse-team to rest
imagination treads where feet can't go
in liminal states verging on our dreams
conflating what's above with life below
what's tangible with what--at most--just seems
before us, in its glory sprawls the night
ere rosy-fingered Dawn lights up the East
where touch and sound must take the place of sight
until two backs conjoin to form one beast
each moment, possibilities abound 
if we'd but lift our eyes above the ground        

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

enlightened

the vault of heaven makes a guy feel small
our planet's dwarfed by even local things
a rock that's scarce worth anything at all
when set against the scale of Saturn's rings
Polaris only tells us how we spin
and which horizon's blotting out our sun
but gives no hint of how one might begin
to understand how cosmos had begun
Fraunhofer lines put bar-codes on the stars
and--once you've compensated for red-shift--
you know not only what, but where they are
and needn't feel entirely adrift
sir Isaac Newton taught us to parse light
to peel away the mysteries of night