sunshine grapes

Some delicious green grapes I bought say something like this on the label - 'filled with sunshine'. That phrase is very appealing. These grapes ripened in the sun. Each one contains those aspects of the sun that support life and growth, health, on our planet. (Sometimes we refer to these aspects as 'vitamins and nutrients'.) Most species (plants and animals) on earth evolved on earth, and may be dependent on sunshine in ways similar to how we are dependent on air and water.

summer Texas creek

one June in the 1990s was mild
milder than it had been for some years
it wasn't too hot to play outdoors
the boys took paper, sticks,
string and picnic plates
they built boats and rafts
at the dining room table.
They signed out with the mom in the kitchen
and headed down to the creek.

There had been plentiful rain
in May and June
the creek was flowing clean
against the smooth and weathered
limestone creek bed
the air was refreshed
they could wade and explore

what was most entertaining
was setting the twigs and rafts
in the water on one side of the crossing
and watching how fast they floated
to the other side

which tunnel pipe would they come out of?
why is this one taking so long?
why do some stay upright
and the others flip and crash?
there goes a roadrunner!
there goes a snake!
there goes a jackrabbit
through the milkweed and buffalo gourd -

________q____

q  qq
_q___________
   

ooo
------oo-------



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other than words


my mind is tumbling
with noise and reasoning
word thoughts that don't match
what i would think
what i would say

i send the words
flying like flocks of birds
and let myself nothink
like a bee
like a moth
like a mouse

i nothink
and let it be
like a Beatle or a tree
my soul floats
all as One and only me

where are the curtains
that flutter in the breeze
that sails in
off the surge of the sea?
the fabrics light
pale yellow and white?
where are the open windows?

popcorn balls

Some families at Halloween in the 1960s in south-central Louisiana handed homemade popcorn balls to trick-or-treaters. What a treasured score this was! Popcorn balls were made of popcorn, butter, cane syrup, salt, and sometimes peanuts - the little red-skinned kind. The popcorn balls were wrapped in wax paper, and during later years, in plastic wrap. When prepared just right, they didn't fall apart, and neither were they hard and crunchy. The candied syrup stretched, and was delightfully chewy and sweet. Over the years, as I grew up, I thought of these as decadent and a treat that was not so good for a body. But now I see in my mind the fields of corn and cane that provide the main ingredients, that popcorn is a whole grain, and I think, what is wrong with that?  I think of the pleasures other creatures on earth get out of these plants, from the thin sweet juices of cane, and the nutritious satisfying substance of corn. Peanuts make squirrels and baseball fans very happy. The noisy costumed creatures at Halloween told the neighbor parents at the door, 'Gee, thanks!'

magnetic

How do magnets work? How are they related to the earth? Do they behave differently on the moon? Why can a person with a magnet and a piece of metal turn the metal into a magnet using friction, by rubbing the two objects together? How does that happen? How do the magnet's poles, positive (+) and negative (-), get affixed to the pieces of metal? Do magnets and gravity have anything in common? Do magnets have other uses besides attaching pictures, comics, and reminders to the refrigerator?

How does magnetism work between living creatures? Is it the same thing, or the application of the same term ('magnetic') to a different, more biophysical phenomenon?

Observatory Park

One doesn't often see the words romance and physics in the same sentence. However, if you think about astrophysics, and the stars, planets and moon in the night sky, you might discover a connection. As a student at University of Denver in the 1970s, I had both class assignments (courses related to astronomy, cosmology, and Einstein's theory of relativity) and other opportunities that permitted me to spend time at Observatory Park. The park included a small couple of acres with an old, handsome, dome-shaped observatory . Sometimes we had lab at the observatory. We took turns looking at various objects in the sky, huddled over the eyepiece of an old, fine telescope that was affixed to a clock mechanism that kept the object being viewed in focus, adjusting to the earth's steady turning. Despite the city lights of Denver, we often had a good view, the 'mile-high' air so cold and clear. The telescope was situated in a small dark space the size of a waiting room, with maybe three bleachers.

Though we must have gazed at planets, the moon, and stars, what made me weak at the knees were galaxies. Galaxies: spiral-, sphere-, and other-shaped collections of thousands of stars, each star different - perhaps binary, or with its own solar system, or blue and dim, or a nova flaring large and bright. We couldn't see individual stars at such a distance - it was more like looking at bee hives and swarms, millions of miles wide, their piercing white glow reaching the humbled eyes of a handful of momentary creatures on a small acre of earth.