Showing posts with label Gravity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gravity. Show all posts

Friday, September 19, 2014

Gravity and Levity

Giaconda by Rene Magritte, 1953

For Poetry Friday, over at Poem Farm, I'm posting another of my physics poems in the newly published Guys Read: True Stories, edited by Jon Scieszka (cover art below). It's titled Gravity, speaking of which I have a question. In Magritte's painting, Giaconda, are the bowlerized men falling, rising, or perhaps merely floating? Maybe they're turning in space, as they face different directions.

Gravity

The opposite of levity
Supposedly is gravity.
For levity means "lightness, mirth,"
While gravity means "down to earth."
And if it simply 
Wasn't there,
We'd float like blimps
Up in the air.
And though it's great,
I think, to fly,
The birds might hate
To share the sky.
And with your head 
Below your feet,
It might be difficult to eat.
To see your food float out of sight
Would surely hurt your appetite.
I'll bet your sleep
Inside a cloud
Would not be deep
When things got loud.
For thunderclaps
Would hurt your head
While you were sleeping
In your bed.
Let's stick with gravity instead.