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
(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
Spring is a thing,
a seasonal symphony.
Singing its songs within nature’s fine harmony.
Plants grow new buds, putting leaves on display.
Birds return home from warm winter holidays.
Insects emerge from their dark hibernation.
There’s feeding and breeding and plant propagation!
Plants take their cues
from the air’s warmer ways,
while birds are called home by the length of the days.
Cold snaps confuse some key pollinators.
Should they wake up or remain hibernators?
Come out too early, no food will have grown.
Come out too late and their flowers have gone.
Spring is a thing.
A seasonal symphony.
Dancing with daylight and climate’s warm mystery.
Photo from Pixabay
LUCA is the Last Universal Common Ancestor
We don’t know how it started:
this awesome life on Earth.
Were muddy ponds or thermal vents
the source of all our births?
Life is so incredible
and beautiful as well.
Growing many Earthly forms
from LUCA’s lovely cell.
And when our Earth eventually dies
engulfed by ageing Sun,
five billion years or so from now,
will ALL of life be gone?
Or should we plan a rocket-launch
of microbes to the stars
and set life’s cycle off again
on planets wide and far?
Image from Pixabay
YOUR POEM could be published on the Science Rhymes Blog for NATIONAL SCIENCE WEEK 2024.
This year, we’re creating a POETRY ZOO. Search “National Science Week Poetry Zoo” or access the PDF called LOVING LIVING THINGS on the Science Rhymes / National Science Week page to help with some ideas.
Please submit by Monday 29th July via email to: feedback@sciencerhymes.com.au.
We prefer poems of 1 to 5 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 with School name, Town and State where supplied (no surname).
Anyone using AI to create poems: please acknowledge ChatGPT or AI equivalent as co-author of your submission.
Thank you to ACP poets and readers for participating and sharing this invitation!
Australian Children’s Poetry 
