Two
poems from Josephine Abbott's Trying Not to Levitate
followed
by a note on the author
Snow
Falling on the Sea
The
volume of a snowflake,
a scientist says, is nine-tenths air –
which is an odd way of looking at it
but I'm glad there's someone out there
thinking about this; measuring;
studying the crystals when they appear;
setting up a miracle of an experiment
predicting the unpredictable snow and sea;
calculating; watching for the instant of impact,
the explosion
spectacular
when the air snaps free.
When a snowflake strikes the water, a scientist says –
strikes being an odd way of putting it, considering
the snowflake's and the sea's relative sizes –
it melts. But I'm glad there's someone
checking under Nature's bed for surprises;
making sure there are some left.
As a job, it's so improbable,
but I'd like to volunteer, please, to hear the impossible;
the underwater din of snow falling on sea.
Trying
Not to Levitate
'Sitting
in a chair, you are actually levitating above it at a height
of one angstrom (a hundred millionth of a centimetre) ...'
–
Bill
Bryson, The History of Nearly Everything
Just
think, we've never actually touched.
What we thought was skin-to-skin
was all this time a separation; a gulf
a hundred millionth of a centimetre wide.
No wonder then, that when we kissed
we had a sense of something more
we'd have reached if only physics
could have bent its rules a little.
What we thought was fondling
was only an electrical force,
utterly convincing as fingers on flesh
and the pressure of bodies together;
and what we believed was attraction
was really like-to-like particles
repelling each other.
But if you understand your atomic science
you'll know what fusion is,
and how the earth will shake
when we finally succeed
in trying not to levitate.
©
Josephine Abbott was born in Manchester in
1956, and was educated at Sheffield University.
She now lives in Leicestershire, and much of her time is spent
running poetry and creative writing workshops and projects.
Her poetry has appeared in various magazines, amongst them Agenda,
Acumen, Frogmore Papers, Poetry Nottingham
and Staple. She has won prizes in competitions run by
Peterloo Press, the Blue Nose Poets, Lancaster LitFest, and
Derby Festival. Her work also received a commendation in the
National Poetry Competition of 1999.
"Snow
Falling on the Sea" was a winner at the Lancaster LitFest
2000 (judged by U. A. Fanthorpe).
