Time’s a kind of mystery,
not made of anything.
We treat it like a measurement.
A time-line piece of string.
But NOW-time can be different,
depending where things are.
We look back over many years
when gazing at a star.
The speed time passes, tick & tock
depends on where things go.
If gravity’s extremely strong
that tick & tock go slow.
Since Einstein showed us Spacetime,
THEN & THERE were surely wed.
And WHEN & WHERE got married too …
and share a Spacetime bed!
It hardly rains
but when it pours
on sleepy desert ground
the speedy changes
to the land
will certainly astound.
A dried-up creek
now overflows
expanding to a lake.
And dormant life-forms
eggs and seeds
immediately awake.
The dry red dirt
transforms into
a carpet made of flowers.
And tiny creatures
start to hatch
within a few short hours.
With decorations
all in place
the waterbirds arrive.
Providing
lots of music.
Now the party’s come alive!
First Published in CSIRO’s Scientriffic #66 2009
Poems for
National Science
Week 2025
SCIENCE RHYMES, hosted by Celia Berrell, are seeking your rhyming science poetry about SOMETHING SMALLER THAN YOU to feature in the SCIENCE RHYMES ITTYVERSE blog this August to celebrate National Science Week. The free PDF called SMALL TINY NANO is available through this Science Week Competition Event and on the Science Rhymes / National Science Week page to help with some ideas.
Please email your submissions by Monday 28th July to: feedback@sciencerhymes.com.au. We prefer poems of 1 to 4 verses that rhyme. Children are especially encouraged to participate: just make sure you correspond via an adult’s email address so we can reply. Poems authored by children will be acknowledged by first name only (with School name, or town and State where applicable). Anyone using ChatGPT to create poems: please acknowledge ChatGPT or AI equivalent as co-author of your submission.
Thank you to all ACP poets who participate in these annual Science Rhymes / Science Week projects!
Best Wishes,
Celia
Trees talk.
Conifers converse.
So do evergreens ever shut up?
Or do eucalypts evoke?
Do beech and birch trees
blather and babble?
Do pine trees
permanently prattle,
or tall trees
tittle-tattle?
Silently they do,
through fungal threads.
Moist underground,
a tangle of mycelium,
like mushroom wires,
like strands of chemistry,
sends messages,
warnings and nourishment.
From root to root.
From tree to tree
en-route connecting
their own internet community.
Photo from Pixabay
Find yourself a place where there’s
no artificial light,
after sunset’s peachy glows
have dwindled into night.
Feast your eyes on darkness
so, your pupils will enlarge,
taking-in night’s wonderment.
A myriad of stars!
Awesome, spacious,
trancing, spinning,
mesmerising lights are bringing
messages of time’s beginning.
Histories of cosmic meaning.
It makes us question why we are,
compared to just one single star.
The more we look,
the more we see
the endlessness.
Infinity.
Image from Pixaby by Nini Kvaratskhelia
Horses trotting happily while
pulling on a cutter sleigh
was quite a common sight to see
in winter’s north-west USA.
This was the eighteen-fifties, when
Pierpont made his catchy song.
Created for Thanksgiving, then
it stayed ‘til Christmas came along.
New gramophone technology
soon spread this song across the seas.
Now JINGLE BELLS stars frequently
in winter-time festivities.
Two astronauts on Gemini Six,
December nineteen-sixty-five,
with sleigh bells and harmonica
performed this song in space – yes LIVE!
https://www.britannica.com/one-good-fact/what-was-the-first-song-played-in-space
Image from the book CHRISTMASTIME RHYMES
(Chandrasekhara Venkarta Raman was born 7 th November 1888)
Chandrasekhara
Raman’s a knight
and Nobel prize-winner
for physics in light.
A new radiation
he came to detect.
A scatter of rays
named “The Raman Effect”.
This change in light’s wavelength
when passing-on through
a gas or some substance
in spectroscope view,
reveals the ID
of its chemistry zoo.
A tool to make
scientist’s dreams come true!
Doing no damage
discerning gem quality;
checking a pill for
content and purity.
Uses: amazingly
varied and rife.
Such as scanning remotely
for Mars signs of life.
For Teachers: The Nobel Prize in Physics 1930 was awarded to Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman “for his work on the scattering of light and for the discovery of the effect named after him” https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1930/
Photo from Pexels by Barcelos_fotos
“Double, double,
toil and trouble …”
Shakespear knew
a couple of subtle
things about his
Macbeth witches,
which is that
their cauldron-brew
contained some magic –
which is true!
Toxic plants made
poisoned potions,
twisting minds to
changed perceptions,
making witches
laugh and scream
as though they’re flying
in a dream.
Perhaps some died
from such a mix,
while others mended
from these tricks.
And those that lived
have paved the way
for cancer drugs
we use today.
Photo from Pixabay
Australian Children’s Poetry 