radium

“Power"

Living in the earth-depositis of our history

Today a backhoe divulged out of a crumbling flank of earth
one bottle amber perfect a hundred-year-old
cure for fever or melancholy a tonic
for living on this earth in the winters of this climate

Today I was reading about Marie Curie:
she must have known she suffered from radiation sickness
her body bombarded for years by the element
she had purified
It seems she denied to the end
the source of the cataracts on her eyes
the cracked and suppurating skin of her finger-ends
till she could no longer hold a test-tube or a pencil

She died a famous woman denying
her wounds
denying
her wounds came from the same source as her power

-Adrienne Rich

****

Last week another woman won a Nobel Prize in chemistry, bringing the total number of female chemistry winners up to five. Five. Out of 180 total winners over a span of 117 years. 

We can do better, right? The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward women getting scientific accolades in equal numbers as men, right? Our pain and our hard work is equally recognized and valued, right? I used to think so, but then Donald Trump got elected president, and Brett Kavanaugh got confirmed as a supreme court justice, so who the heck knows. 

pretty words for your sunday

via

"Within"

By Carol Lynn Pearson 

I read a map once
Saying the kingdom of God
Was within me.
But I never trusted
Such unlikely ground.

I went out.
I scoured schools
And libraries
And chapels and temples
And other people’s eyes
And the skies and the rocks.
And I found treasures
From the kingdom’s treasury
But not the kingdom.

Finally I came in quiet
For a rest
And turned on the light.

And there
Just like a surprise party
Was all the smiling royalty–
King, Queen, court.

People have been
Locked up for less, I know.
But I tell you
Something marvelous
Is bordered by this skin:

I am a castle
And the kingdom of God
Is within.

(found here)

this poem

"Separation" by W.S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color

-------------

Ahhhh, beautiful. Isn't it the truth?

three months and one day

That time

I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
"It's not the weight you carry

but how you carry it -
books, bricks, grief -
it's all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down."
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled -
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?

by Mary Oliver, stolen from Amanda


I just want to know, do we ever stop counting?

haiku for you

like cherry blossoms
in the spring
let us fall
clean and radiant

Clean and radiant. Doesn't that sound nice? Clean and radiant and free of grief.

A wish for spring.

(Have you heard this song? It sounds like the haiku to me.)

ten years later

I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;	5
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs. -Walt Whitman photo from Old City in Philly

death be not proud

Today in Aaron's doctor-patient relations class they watched a video chronicling an English professor's struggle with stage 4 ovarian cancer. Since all of his lectures get posted online, I got to watch it too, at home. It was heartbreaking. And it reminded me of my grandma and visiting her in the hospital, so you know, I was practically sobbing in half of it. This poem by John Donne was mentioned over and over:


Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more, death, thou shalt die.


The last two lines are especially beautiful. "...wee wake eternally" isn't that the truth? Because of Jesus Christ, death is dead. It is overcome, and we live forever.
Beautiful.

stolen words

Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasp'd no more--
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

light at the end of the tunnel

let’s go said he

not too far said she

what’s too far said he

where you are said she

e. e. cummings

I saw this on Meg Fee's blog and very much liked it. Who doesn't like a little e. e. cummings every now and then? Or maybe twice in the past month...who knew I was such a fan?

where did she go?

In math I was the whiz kid, keeper
of oranges and apples. What you don’t understand,
master, my father said; the faster
I answered, the faster they came.

I could see one bud on the teacher’s geranium,
one clear bee sputtering at the wet pane.
The tulip tree always dragged after heavy rain
so I tucked my head as my boots slapped home.

My father put up his feet after work
and relaxed with a highball and The Life of Lincoln.
After supper we drilled and I climbed the dark

before sleep, before a thin voice hissed
numbers as I spun on a wheel. I had to guess.
Ten, I kept saying, I’m only ten.

-Rita Dove

What's with me and poetry lately? Oh, and I hereby resolve to stay awake in French and pay attention in chem lit. Goodness. Also, maybe I'm going to expand my ultimate career (of "Avatar:The Last Airbender" watching and blogging) to include science fair judging and doing chemistry magic shows. More on that later.

down they forgot as up they grew

Sometimes, I really like poems even when I don't have a clue what they mean,
just because the words sound so cool together. This one by e.e. cummings
is a stellar example. (I know it's a tad on the long side, but just read it. Do it.)

anyone lived in a pretty how town
(with up so floating many bells down)
spring summer autumn winter
he sang his didn't he danced his did

Women and men(both little and small)
cared for anyone not at all
they sowed their isn't they reaped their same
sun moon stars rain

children guessed(but only a few
and down they forgot as up they grew
autumn winter spring summer)
that noone loved him more by more

when by now and tree by leaf
she laughed his joy she cried his grief
bird by snow and stir by still
anyone's any was all to her

someones married their everyones
laughed their cryings and did their dance
(sleep wake hope and then)they
said their nevers they slept their dream

stars rain sun moon
(and only the snow can begin to explain
how children are apt to forget to remember
with up so floating many bells down)

one day anyone died i guess
(and noone stooped to kiss his face)
busy folk buried them side by side
little by little and was by was

all by all and deep by deep
and more by more they dream their sleep
noone and anyone earth by april
wish by spirit and if by yes.

Women and men(both dong and ding)
summer autumn winter spring
reaped their sowing and went their came
sun moon stars rain

I get that there's some sort of life progression going on here, or some sort of passage of time, but I haven't decided yet if it's happy or not.

Today I think it's happy.
Mostly because today I am.

I think I'm going to run a 5K next month. Any tips for a girl who dances too much, but never goes running?(Also, if you're in the area, you should run it with me! March 13th, 9:15 AM)

Hope you all have a good week, living in your pretty how towns. :)

I'm hoping by the end of the semester I will understand every word:

Deep in,
they're there, they're
at it all the time, it's jai
alai on the hot molecular fronton-
a bounce off walls onto the packed aleatory
dance floor where sideswipes are medium of exchange,
momentum trades sealed in swift carom sequences,
or just that quick kick in the rear, the haphaz-
ard locomotion of the warm, warm world.
But spring nights grow cold in Ithaca;
the containing walls, glass or metal,
are a jagged rough rut of tethered
masses, still vibrant, but now
retarding, in each collision,
the cooling molecules.
There, they're there,
still there,
in deep,
slow