Red light orchestrates softly across the evening sky
The disappearing horizon becomes more evident
I feel as if I”m sliding away with the turning of the earth
Darkness settles in, and a new life begins
Stars circle in the open air
Lying enriched in their dark blanket
Soft Cirrus clouds lasso the moon for a brief moment
The nights chill rolls across the land
Dew begins to rest on the blades of grass
A hovering fog forms
***
Lutetium
Janet Kuypers
from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#71, Lu)
When I was little
and first fell in love
with the stars in the sky,
it was always easy
to spot the constellation
Cassiopeia at night —
just look for five dots
that looked like the letter “w”
as the throne for Cassiopeia,
queen of Aethiopia.
But apparently the Germans
had a thing for Cassiopeia too,
because an Austrian,
a Frenchman and an American
all independently discovered
the element Lutetium
at the same time…
After years of debate,
the Frenchman won
the naming rights for Lutetium,
but the Germans still
stuck with Cassiopeia
for their name-of-choice
through the nineteen fifties.
But I don’t know, maybe
this element Lutetium
was the perfect thing
for queen Cassiopeia,
because although it is
more common than silver
here on Earth,
it’s hard to separate
from other elements,
and it’s harder and denser
than it’s counterparts
(even costing ten thousand
dollars per kilogram).
#
If I could have photographed
queen Cassiopeia,
I may have wanted
Lutetium aluminum garnet
as the liquid element
in immersion lithography
for added depth-of-focus
in my photo journalism travails…
Though maybe I should just
savor the connection
between queen Cassiopeia
(with her throne in the sky),
the mother of Andromeda
(goddess and galaxy),
and Lutetium —
something that has always
been so strong,
and has also worked
with others, to help us see
everything so much better…
* Germans used cassiopium (Cp), after the constellation Cassiopeia, as the name for element 71 (Lutetium) until the 1950s.
Lutetium is not a particularly abundant element, though significantly more common than silver in the earth’s crust; it has few specific uses, but is found with almost all other rare-earth metals but never by itself.
Lutetium is very difficult to separate from other elements, and pure Lutetium metal is very difficult to prepare. Even though it is more common than silver, it is one of the rarest and most expensive of the rare earth metals with the price about US$10,000 per kilogram, or about one-fourth that of gold. Lutetium also has the highest density, melting point, and hardness of the lanthanides.
For an application for Lutetium: Immersion lithography is a photolithography resolution enhancement technique for manufacturing integrated circuits (ICs) that replaces the usual air gap between the final lens and the wafer surface with a liquid medium that has a refractive index greater than one. Currently, the most promising high-index lens material is Lutetium aluminum garnet.
I grow old I grow old
I shall wear my trousers rolled*
Wear them rolled
walk upon the beach and that mermaid you hear
is your wife
calling across the ocean
darling
darling
darling
why did you leave me
did I embarrass you in front of
your friends as you
spoke of the Greek gods?
These are the sirens we all hear my
friend but you
knew why they called and
maybe
there never were sirens,
only life
only guilt
and life itself
calling
calling
calling
come sailor unleash yourself from the boat
do not fear the wind, the waves
come
come
come to us
can you not see us,
our long thin arms waving in the wind,
our hair blowing behind us
come to us
by david michael jackson
*Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock, T. S. Eliot
Copernicium
Janet Kuypers
from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#112, Cn)
It was my love of you
and what you believed in
that made me try to get you.
With your Renaissance ways,
you taught me that I’m not
the center of the Universe,
but I’ve learned since then
to go beyond the sun, because
there is too much out there
to see.
As a scientist, I know you
changed our views of the world.
So science must create you, again.
I know that mathematics
can explain the Universe,
but you were more than a
mathematician, you were
a physician, a translator,
an economist, an astronomer,
an artist.
I know you were a founder
in your time, and the half-life
of what we create may be small…
but I would have to throw
any metal I could into any
isotope I could, like zinc to lead,
just to see if you would
come out for us again. Let us
find you, let us experiment
with you.
Let us accelerate these processes,
cause just the right reactions
to synthesize you and your genius.
I don’t care how we get you,
whether what we do is cold or hot,
when we fuse to create you,
and through all of our work
you may only come to us
after the decay of others
around you.
We’ve learned that only now,
now that we have you, we can
try to work with any part of you,
no matter how unstable
you say you now are. I don’t care.
You’re the last member
transitioning in this series — so now
I can only reflect on your relativity
to planets, like Mercury, as well as
your nobility.
I miss what you’ve done
for how we think in this world.
I miss clear scientific minds.
I only hope that what we’ve done
in your honor does you justice.
Even though we’ve only created you,
I want you to remember
that it is because we wanted
to learn, too, and we wanted you
to guide the way.
I’m flung back to 92 Rapple,
sheer curtains to the floor.
Silk spread, snow smooth,
palest ivory, wall to wall.
Bridal, exotic. How many
years was it, wondering, a
virgin still, a husband who
brought me tea in bed but
not what I longed for. In
the photograph, gauze
camouflages, lures. Soft
drams, no angles. And even
before the first lover came,
bottle of wine, Chateau y
Kempe hidden in the
closet, probably stolen from
some friend’s house in
Carmel. Months of letters,
photographs of him, one
of Dylan Thomas so I had
no idea what to expect
Fantasy was one thing. But to
have him: ex con, alcoholic,
stagger across the country
with a torn suitcase and
broken shoes. I had no idea
where to keep him and met
him at a motel up the street,
terrified there was something
wrong with me, that that
was why I was still a virgin.
By evening, I checked the
mirror, disappointed I didn’t
see a change in my face.
Nothing about the motel
room stays in memory. Or
when he started living in the
trees, sneaking in the back
door when my husband pulled
out in the Healy. That room,
so pure, so like a bridal chamber,
tho still pristine, the only color
not white in the room beside
the tiger cat, was his, my first
lover, and my body. After
love we’d read poetry all day.
Was it wine coolers or
scotch? He wanted drugs but
we had only nut meg. Like
silk draped over the railing
in the photo of this house,
my body fell over his. How
little I remember his smell,
how I felt with him inside me.
He was too big, he couldn’t
stay. He lit a match under my
window each night and I turned
the light on and off like a fire
fly signaling for a mate.
It was always a good story but
but it was getting so cold in
the woods he couldn’t stay.
The only place he can has been
for so many years
in poems