science
A Poem A Day #94: What Happened Before The Big Bang?
My Poem “Stephen Hawking”
Ever since I was a child
I have been staring up at
the stars of the universe
and I have been staring at
the wonders of the world
and asking questions about the origins
of everything and everyone…
ever since I was a child
I have been enthralled by science
and the many scientific discoveries
that have been made over the centuries…
ever since I was a child
I have been interested in learning more about
physics, chemistry, biology,
and how and why things in nature
work the way that they do on our planet
and elsewhere in the cosmos;
and I will never forget learning about
who scientists were and what they
were famous for: scientists like
Sir Isaac Newton, Marie Curie,
Galileo Galilei, Albert Einstein –
and E = mc2 was the first
and is still the only scientific equation
that I can effortlessly recite from memory;
however, I must admit that it wasn’t until
I became more familiar with the renowned
theoretical physicist and cosmologist
Stephen Hawking – his story, and his pursuit
of a Theory of Everything –
that I became enthralled by the concept
that science and discovery was something
that could be achieved by anybody
with the gift of seeing beyond their periphery.
Stephen Hawking was, and still is,
in my opinion, one of the greatest minds
there has ever been…
Stephen Hawking defied the odds of life
at any and every opportunity
and he never allowed the fact that for
that majority of his adult life
his body was confined to a wheelchair
because he had Motor Neuron Disease
to stop him from becoming famous,
inspirational, and world renowned
because of the way that he was able
to think about and interpret the hidden
secrets of the origin and the nature of the universe.
For most of his life Stephen Hawking
was only able to communicate with the aid
of a computer generated voice –
that over time became just as synonymous
with him as his great intelligence did –
and nevertheless he was able to
share so many theories and insights
into the inner-workings of reality
and he eventually ascended to
become the Lucasian Professor of
Mathematics at the University of Cambridge
for thirty years, and in that time
he published books, he gave inspirational speeches,
and he showed the world that anybody
could achieve anything simply through
using the power of their own mind –
and, in my opinion, that is why
there will never be anyone
who embodies who a person can be
and what they can do if they choose to
not give up, to keep fighting, to keep living,
and to keep considering new ways
of seeing things from different perspectives,
than the personification of hope
who will never be forgotten:
the one and the only
Professor Stephen Hawking.
My Poem “It’s not rocket science”
Some things – like poetry, art,
biology, chemistry – can be easy
if you possess the right key,
that fits the right lock,
at the right time,
to open the right gateway
to the way of understanding
that you need to comprehend what you find…
some things – like being a parent –
can seem easy when seen from far away;
however, the closer that you get to anything
the more that you discover that there are
more constantly moving parts
that need to be juggled
than can be observed with an observers eye…
some things seem so simple,
but at their heart they are more
complicated, chaotic, unpredictable,
and uncontrollable than can be put into words…
the sun rising in the sky every morning,
the moon orbiting the Earth,
the Earth orbiting the sun –
things that repeat day after day,
things that we believe we understand
and have an answer for,
but which are far from
as simplistic as they appear…
even a simple magic trick
takes many instances of practice
by a magician to make them seem effortless…
even the ability to stand up straight
and not fall over is something
that most people take for granted…
even the fact that we have clean air to breathe,
sunlight to brighten our day,
trees and flowers growing all around us…
even the fact that there are
insanely complicated cycles, systems,
and forms of life – like humanity –
is proof positive that sometimes
the things that appear so perfect
take time, perseverance, and patience…
the blue sky above, the epic peaks of mountains
that tower, which are constant draws
to adventurers and explorers to conquer,
the oceans of life that are the home
of some of the most diverse and amazing
forms of curiosity known to man,
space, the stars of the night-sky –
some things, especially the simplest of things,
are the most complicated of things;
however, it isn’t until you dig deeper
into what makes something what it is
that you realize that every thing
sings its own multi-layered song –
even silence – and everything is complex,
even it isn’t rocket science.
Listen to My Poem ‘It’s not rocket science’ by Mark The Poet on #SoundCloud
My Poem ‘Science’
As one cover closes,
another cover opens;
as one world freezes,
another continues to never know
the feeling of what it is like to be frozen;
as one story ends,
another adventure begins;
as a stranger becomes a friend,
another friendly acquaintance
is off to see something new
that they will declare when they see you next
that they had never seen such a thing before, or since;
as one road changes,
another connects with the one before
but simply with a change of name;
as one fire rages,
another dies until it is no more
than the after-glow of an extinguished flame.
Starts, and finishes;
beginnings, and ends;
birth, and death;
life’s phases of change and transformation;
thoughts, and wishes;
fresh air, breathing, cleansing;
right, or left;
chaos, order, belief, science;
everything in balance,
and happening for a reason,
like the variable in a perfect equation.
When things recur in nature;
when things are born, twinned with another
instead of singularly and alone;
when the present is also the past and the future,
that is when we all should take notice
with all our senses and instincts –
because it is then that we realize
that it is always better to be a designer
of your own life and style,
instead of simply being the same as someone else
and acting like a clone.
The seasons of Earth,
the names that we have given
the phases of our planet,
are never the same from one year to the next:
some winters are mild,
some winters are unbelievably harsh,
some summers are as golden as those
we always remember having when we were a child,
some summers are like being bitten hard
by a tyrannosaurus rex.
The sun continues to burn, and shine;
the water level of our rivers and lakes rise
and they fall, unexpectedly;
life is what it is,
and can never knowingly be kind, or unkind;
things happen again and again, invariably,
wonderfully, and sometimes surprisingly poetically.
Life is a continuous moment,
that our time existing in which
could be balanced on the tip of a needle;
our voices are but a whisper
in the cosmos of perfect silence,
and it is life’s precious finality
that empowers me the most,
and inspires me to the deepest of depths
and to the greatest of heights –
because once our lives are lived to their entirety,
we expire and then begin again anew,
and with another life to live and slowly reveal –
and that is the great journey,
and that is the great discovery of life,
of the universe, and the answer that follows
the equality sign posed eternally
from time in memorial by a meaning of life,
that is both a religion to believe in,
as well as the refined tried and tested
practice of a science.
markthepoet.me 