The Sunday Poem

My daughter has a science project she has to do. It involved testing various substances to see whether they were acid or base, using a stinky cabbage juice concoction. We did the experiments on the kitchen table this evening…

Science Homework

Cabbage juice and acid a pinkish fluid make.
Cabbage juice staying blue means you found a base.
Cabbage juice with bleach, though, is turning green;
Heavens! A chemical reaction unforeseen.

Glasses strewn on kitchen table, tablespoons of love,
Careful mixing of antacids and the smelly stuff;
We tolerate the messes and hope nothing explodes
For sake of experiments further down the road.

Avogadro’s number has nothing much to tell us
Here on a Sunday while younger brother’s jealous.
“I want to blow stuff up!” he says; someday his chance will come.
Meanwhile, I ladle cabbage juice into a poem.

If only we each got six glasses for our mixtures.
But all our lives are made of tests that became our fixtures.
Hypothesize, trial run, measure and record;
You take the acid, form your base, and keep on moving forward.

We have no more Sargasso Sea:
We’ve lost the tales from Argosy,
Of giant jewfish swallowing divers
And ghost ship press gangs snaring live ones.
Read More “The Sunday Poem: Change of Dreams”