14/365 Kepler

Johannes Kepler
near blind from smallpox since youth
unable to clearly view
the very celestial bodies he studied
Kepler threw to the wind
the dust of former foundations
science and mysticism
abandoning preconceptions of both

His masterpiece,
Mysterium Cosmographicum
(The Mytery of the Universe)
New conception of the mechanism
of planetary motion,
as inanimate clockwork,
intricate and predictable.
A striking model
Crafted first in colored paper
He planned to cast it in silver
use it as both scientific illustration
and fancy punch bowl for parties


Following the heliocentric Copernican model
rejecting the Ptolemaic
Kepler considered the planets,
five in number,
six if Copernicus was to be believed
and Earth was to be numbered among them,
recalling the elements of Aristotle
five in number
the polyhedra of Euclid
five in number,
six if the sphere was included.
He imagined them, nested,
a beautiful convergence,
each Platonic solid delicately inscribed within a sphere,
each sphere within another solid:

sphere, Saturn's orbit
cube, the element "earth"
sphere, for Jupiter
tetrahedron, fire
sphere, Mars
dodecahedron, ether
sphere, Earth
icosahedron, air
sphere, Venus
octahedron, water
sphere, Mercury

Each concentric globe approximating
the orbit of a planet
A perfect geometry
to the solar system in which
society was yet to believe
Proposing the sun itself
propelled the planets along
with a force he termed "vigour"
felt more strongly by the nearer planets
than those more distant.

It was beautiful
rebellious
divine revelation and heresy
elegant
until Kepler himself discovered
the orbits were elliptical
shattering the symmetry
his model crumbling at its core

Kepler, the half-blind young astronomer
accepted this
the inequality of beauty
and truth
the dismantling of revelation
years of epiphanies

This was not the end for him
from the elipses sprang new beauty
ratios of period squared
to radius cubed
explanations for the mysteries
of varying speeds of orbit
tables predicting motion and position
thirty times the accuracy of Copernicus
relied on for decades,
an end to a journey
at the elegant convergence of beauty
and truth

13/365 When it rains

I miss you when it rains,
When the clean water falls
Carrying with it the smell of sky
Dissolving any trace
Of you

The day we met
I was no stranger to attention
Painted the bright red
Of emergency
Magnet for second glances
Beckoning passively
From the corner of the eye

And for all my luster
The draw of my curves
And petite stature
It was never love
They never once made me feel
Special.  Only used.
Only dirty.
Some liked the smell of it on me,
Others bristled a the thought that another
Would dare leave their mark where they had.

But you,
You padded up
Like I was a fresh piece of plumbing
Walked in careful circles, like you always do.
Three times clockwise,
One turn back the other way.
Even when the street lights are out
I'll always know it's you.
The way you sniff  so gently
Just above my valve
Gingerly, so delicate
Tip your hip skyward
Reveal to me your underbelly
Most pink and tender
Mark me as your own
Once on the street side,
Then again from the sidewalk.

You're my boy.
The man with the leash
Has come to understand this
He no longer shakes his head at your rituals
He knows love when he sees it.
He knows you won't walk so eagerly
down any other side street but this one.
I am a public utility,
But I will always be yours.

You forgive all those times
With all those others
As though they'd never happened
You have marked me a thousand times as your own
I am in your blood.
I'm your hydrant.
I know love
When I feel it.

12/395 Nudibranch

When they ask me why I would name my daughter after a sea slug
I correct them.
The proper term is nudibranch
from: nudus, naked, exposed
and: -branchi, the gills,
necessary for absorbing oxygen from sea water
They are beautiful creatures,
Bodies soft and muscular,
Colors vibrant,
Adorned with frilled ridges, bumps, and soft dorsal spines
There is an exposition in this.

To call them "sea slug" is to miss the elegance,
the complexity.
A snail without a shell,
they are not to be pitied.
Do not assume they long for shells.
Their intestines are still twisted,
helical,
proof enough their shells were cast off long ago,
relics of a time when their flesh
was vulnerable, insufficient,
when they needed protection  from outside.
There is a metaphor here.

Skin and ridges so smooth and delicate,
colors so vibrant
it is natural to infer weakness
but these colors inspire warning
serve as camouflage among the corals
keep them hidden and safe
and beneath that smooth skin
await toxins
stored for just that moment
when a predator strikes
making the same foolish assumption.
This is foreshadowing.

Nudibranchs are bold thieves
Stealing toxins from digested sponges,
storing chloroplasts from cells of algae,
whole and unharmed,
as prisoners of another kingdom
to manufacture food
just beneath their skin.
Even nematocysts
stinging cells of jellyfish and hydroids
hair trigger harpoons of neurotoxin
are consumed intact, unfired,
transported by digestive folds,
installed carefully along dorsal ridges
a volley,
a toxic counter-strike at the ready,
defense on another organism's dime
There is irony in the outcome.

And when nudibranchs love
it does not look like love
It is genderless battle
aggressive and raw
requiring offense and defense
feints and attacks
each creature striving to pierce
tear into the other
where no pore yet exists
And only the victor
is unburdened by the outcome.
This is the turning point,
This is revelation.

When they try to tell me how adorable my daughter is
I correct them.
This child is more sonnet
than greeting card.
My daughter's laughter
is a sunset of smoke and mirrors
With primitive speech,
her simple words and phrases,
she brings more belly laughs
more lumps in the throat
to this grown man
than any poet on their best day.
And when she cries
it can be so
annoying
and yet she gets me to pick her up anyway
and makes me love her for that, too.
This will be the epilogue.

She will never be a sea slug.
She is more than just beautiful.
Her vulnerability, deceptive.
She is a thief
No doubt one day she will pierce the heart she has stolen
I will relish the pain.
She is dangerously beautiful.
If they can't see the nudibranch in her
they haven't been reading
carefully.

11/395 Meter Maid

When the town is too big
for its memories,
poorly planned
its streets congested
and lined with sidewalks
parallel parking
and newly-planted saplings
where the old elms once gave shade
There is a cycle of negative feedback
motion of unfortunate political wheels
fiscal year projections
meetings and proposals
a vote of ayes, nays, and abstentions
followed by months of red tape and contract bidding
before the meters are installed
First along Main Street
then tributaries
The parking attendants
roam the street
rain or shine
doling out misery
at taxpayer expense.
No one asked for this.
This is the first sign
that our democracy is a myth.
Outside family businesses
with generations of history,
shops that have boasted
of service with a smile,
the parking lot signs warn,
"violators will be towed"
The parks close at sundown,
Public space is constrained,
and a quaint small town
becomes inhospitable.

They tell us this is progress.
This is the way of civilization
Convincing us to pay for
what has always been free:
our water, air, occupation of small spaces.

We believe the meter maid
It is clearly our own fault
There for two minutes too long
The signs were posted
Once she starts writing the ticket
it's too late,
slipping more progress beneath a wiper blade.

They begin to mourn:
the empty storefronts downtown
the loss of community
the graffiti and urbanization
They blame the economy
and the big box stores
at the edge of town,
those enemies of community
with their bright lights,
their reasonable prices
and their ample free parking.
Shaking fists at the strip malls
while padding gaps the new budget
with a fresh bank of meters
to be installed next month
on a formerly quiet residential street.
Wondering all the while
what happened to their idyllic small town.

10/395 The Miracle of Life

In the 1870s
there was no sex education in schools
and unless a child happened to live on a farm
with the daily opportunity to casually observe livestock
in the throes of passion,
the mechanics and hazards of intercourse
were passed on only in hushed whispers,
parceled out along with healthy doses of rumor and old wives tales.
The only printed information at the time
came in the form of thick medical textbooks
rife with Latin terminology
unintelligible to child and adult alike.

As our nation urbanized and those
chance encounters with livestock became more rare
there came a doctor,
Edwin Bliss Foote
who published a series of books for children
unshrouding the mysteries of the human body:
Digestion,
Circulaiton,
Muscles,
The Nervous System,
and... the fifth book in the series, subtitled
"A Book for Private Reading."
This Victorian book series for children,
complete with detailed line drawings of... everything
(including capillaries, animated appliances, and a vagina with a music note tooting out of it)
 was, of course, entitled:,
"Sammy Tubbs, the Boy Doctor, and Sponsie, the Troublesome Monkey."


Dr. Foote, by all accounts, was a troublemaker,
having been served a $3500 fine in 1874
for violating the Comstock Act of 1873
by distributing in the mail
an instructional pamphlet on the employment
of "contraceptics" for limiting the size of the family.
And sent Susan B. Anthony a check for $25
after she was fined herself,
for daring to vote in New York.

Did I mention that Sammy Tubbs the Boy Doctor
was a gymnast?
an inquisitive young man whose research into anatomy
came often as a result of curious questions
spawned by his own misadventures
or those of Sponsie,
the Troublesome Monkey.

Did I also mention  Sammy Tubbs the Boy Doctor was black,
the 12-year-old son of freed slaves?

And did I also mention that in the fifth book
Sammy Tubbs' investigation into the reproductive system
Is immediately preceded by Sammy being accosted by
the father of a white girl he had been seen kissing,
followed by a lengthy diatribe on the relationship
between social equity and the future of inter-racial copulation.
In 1874.

Not to mention that Sponsie
was labeled a "Troublesome Monkey"
Just 15 years after publication
of the Origin of Species.

And so, by comparison,
it seems relatively innocuous that
on Groundhogs Day, 2012
I showed my 8th grade science students
who are studying the reproduction system
in cheap textbooks with full-color diagrams
a Emmy winning movie,
The Miracle of Life
Including the live birth part at the end.

I assured them ahead of time,
It would look nothing like pornography.
More like roadkill, in reality,
than anything they might have imagined.
I told them they could look away.

Oh, how they complained
And giggled
And commented that the trip through the inside of the urethra
looked a lot like the special effects on CSI.
And yet, they watched,
Really watched,
Complaining to mask their fascination,
Asking excellent questions concealed as jokes.
Even without a troublesome monkey for diversion.

I didn't inform the parents before showing their children a real vagina.
Probably, it would have been wise.
I may have also mentioned gay sex
and described how condoms are put on,
and how prostate exams are given,
and used the phrase "wiggle wiggle"
in a way that will make them unable to ever use that phrase normally again.

I'm just doing my job.
Which is really awkward.
And full of stilted commentary
During which anything I say will surely be misinterpreted
Accidentally, intentionally, or both.

There will surely be phone calls.
I will justify my decisions
hopefully well enough to appease the greatest concerns.
This will be the class these children talk about at the reunion
when they are middle aged
with kids of their own.

Finally
I've taught them something I can be sure
They'll remember.