Do children’s calls
and laughs get past
this giant plate
of strengthened glass?
Do fish hear words
or muffled hums
inside this
grand aquarium?
Aquarium Query by Celia Berrell
Inspired by March Picture Prompt
AQUARIUM by Kaushani Mufti
Where liquid water meets the air
it has a surface tension.
An outer layer of molecules
that all have strong attraction.
Water droplets round in shape
like beads will often form,
hanging on a cobweb’s threads
like jewels in the dawn.
And on a pond small insects simply
walk along its top.
Their tiny feet don’t break that layer.
Along the top they hop.
A raindrop on a window-pane
will slide towards the ground
as water is a fluid that
can easily move round.
It leaves behind a trailing tail
as it goes trickling past
because that surface tension makes
it stick upon the glass.
I like to pick out two big drops
and guess their moving pace
to see which one will trickle first
and win the window race.
Poem from The Science Rhymes Book. Illustration by Amy Sheehan
Now UFOs are UAPs,
can someone please explain
who was it who decided
UFOs must be renamed?
Of course, I do not have a clue
who might have been that author,
but I have a question for them:
what’s wrong with ‘flying saucer’?
Note: Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, are now officially known as Unidentified Aerial (or Anomalous) Phenomena, or UAPs.
An infinity of questions
To ignite imaginations
To wonder
How and what and why
And where it all began
First observations
Then explorations
Sought answers
To these central questions
Posed by curiosity
Behold –
A single singularity
Big bang!
That’s where it all began
From one united infinity
Now diverse plurality
A myriad variety
Evolving
Throughout history
A complicated tapestry
Including all
The large and small
Everything and
You and me
Questing for elucidation
Clearing any obfuscation
Defying myths
And superstition
Disproving pseudo- explanations
Based on weak interrogation
Of the vast enormity
Of the universe miscellany
Engaging disputation
Sparks
Research investigation
Inspires ingenuity
Seeks understanding, clarity
Until with evidence
Reveals
The mysteries no longer sealed
No longer fraught with
Trepidation due to
Ignorant misperception
For Science and discovery
Unveils what is
For all to see
Some called us lost from Earth’s great zoo
Extinct beyond a doubt
But we are here to claim our prize
As champs of hiding out
Men sought us over Lord Howe Isle
(And brought their rats as well)
So we jumped ship and hid upon
A stack that spikes the swell
Beneath a tea-tree clinging to
The stark Balls Pyramid
We waited to be found by folks
Before we flipped our lid
It took some eighty years before
Two scientists arrived
But even then they couldn’t see
Our black butts had survived
That night we nosed out from our nook
To let them know we’d won
The longest game of hide-and-seek
Insects had ever run
And now we’d like our trophy, please
We phasmids are for real
If you do not acknowledge us
We’ll give you stick – so deal!
Compared to fur or human hair
feathers are a smart affair.
As down, their fluffy unzipped form
of under-feathers, keeps birds warm.
But barbs and barbules, shaft and quill
hide clues to how birds fly with skill.
Their contour feathers, zipped and long
make wafting wings so light yet strong.
From dowdy mums to vivid males
with crazy crests and splendid tails;
for camouflage or bright display
feathers have lots of roles to play.
First published in Double Helix (September 2015)
Reproduced with permission of CSIRO
www.doublehelix.csiro.au
Silvery streaks of morning-time rain
puddling into the mud
reminds me of blueberry pancakes
and circular see-through parachutes.
Raindrops aren’t teardrops.
There’s no pointy tip.
Those free-falling globules
are blueberry round.
But if they meet-up
as they fall through the sky
a middle-sized raindrop
as-flat-as-a-pancake
might suddenly start to appear.
Bigger and larger and bulkier still
fast-falling raindrops
past pancake proportions
with stretch in the centre
and drag through the air.
For less than a second
becoming a dome
these small glassy parachutes
wobble then burst
to break into
blueberry droplets again.
Celia said: I was delighted to learn that raindrops make all these weird shapes as they fall to the ground. This year I hope to receive Your Poems about the wonders of water for the Science Rhymes website.
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2009/07/how-raindrop-exploding-parachute
Australian Children’s Poetry 