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A Magazine Poem (Almost All of Its Words Are Taken from a Magazine Article) to Mark the Discovery of Gravitational Waves.

THE MOTION OF THE WIND IN HANFORD

The motion of the wind in Hanford
Or of the ocean in Livingston
Or imperfections in the light
Through fluctuations in the grid…

The jittering of single atoms
Within mirrors
Or distant lightning storms…

Interferences beyond reckoning
In earth’s purest vacuum!

A trillionth as dense
As the atmosphere at sea
Yet somewhat undone by
Miniscule seismic tremors
Or passing cars
Or aeroplanes
Or wolves.

***************************

(In the style of Wallace Stevens.)

Margaret Soltan, February 11, 2016 12:58PM
Posted in: headline of the day, poem

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3 Responses to “A Magazine Poem (Almost All of Its Words Are Taken from a Magazine Article) to Mark the Discovery of Gravitational Waves.”

  1. Greg Says:

    “. . .The sheets of music
    In the strokes of thunder . . .
    When day comes, fire foams in the motion of the sea”

    and the patented equivocating “or”

    I like your Poem and its uses of my favorite poet.

    Was on the blog to see if Scalia made an appearance. I’m steeling myself against the likely hagiography (see Jamelle Bouie Slate; of course not on these pages) of the sort that followed the demise of President Ray Gun. Yuk.

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Greg: Many thanks. As for Scalia: The man did not believe in evolution. Nuff said.

  3. Greg Says:

    Nor did he evidence evolution.

    I think you would enjoy reading this wonderful take down of Scalia “The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia” by Judge Richard Posner, who started academic life as an economic reductionist and became a really nuanced major public intellectual and became sensitive to the real human interests at stake in the grinding of legal machinery and making of public policy.

    https://newrepublic.com/article/106441/scalia-garner-reading-the-law-textual-originalism

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