Interdisciplinary Studies in Letters & Science

Rebecca Elson

"A Responsibility to Awe" OxfordPoets Series. Carcanet. ISBN: 1 90303 954 1

We Astronomers

We astronomers are nomads,

Merchants, circus people,

All the earth our tent.

We are industrious.

We breed enthusiasms,

Honour our responsibility to awe.

But the universe has moved a long way off.

Sometimes, I confess,

Starlight seems too sharp,

And like the moon

I bend my face to the ground,

To the small patch where each foot falls,

Before it falls,

And I forget to ask questions,

And only count things.

Carnal Knowledge

Having picked the final datum

From the universe

And fixed it in its column,

Named the causes of infinity,

Performed the calculus

Of the imaginary i, it seems

The body aches

To come too,

To the light,

Transmit the grace of gravity,

Express in its own algebra

The symmetries of awe and fear,

The shudder up the spine,

The knowing passing like a cool wind

That leaves the nape hairs leaping.

 

Howard, Peter. "Dark matter in poetic measure: A Review of Rebecca Elson's 'A Responsibility to Awe.'" PhysicsWeb Carcanet Press, Ltd. January 2002. Available online at: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/3508;jsessionid=A6DE3DC02AC0F07FE359430803E511FF

Fiske, Ingrid. "The life and poetry of astronomer Rebecca Elson." Nature; 12/20/2001-12/27/2001, Vol. 414 Issue 6866, p845. Ebsco Host Academic Search Elite. Chabot College Lib., Hayward, CA. 5 Aug. 2005. http://search.epnet.com

Bonnet, R.M. (ed). "A long-sought fossil gas found at last." 30 Discoveries from ESA's science missions in space. European Space Agency. April 1999. http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/index.cfm?fobjectid=13555&fbodylongid=1038

8/5/05 - SH

Back to Chabot College's ISLS Program 2005-2006

Chabot College