Momentum

 The product of mass and velocity

The wind in your face on a bicycle,

lifting weights at the gym.

But what is momentum?

An example:

Oil tanker lost power at the Port of Corpus Christi,  

crashing into the pier.

Running in reverse, it takes a supertanker five miles to stop.

It has huge momentum. 

An analogy:

Economic momentum.

All those means of production,

all those workers.

A constantly expanding GDP

providing goods and services.

Too many goods we don't really need,

too few services we are desperate for.

 

We wait for the quarterly report.

We can't see the climate pier. 

half of us deny that there even is a pier.

We want jobs and growth.

 

An ever expanding economy.

 How long will it take to transform? 

 There is a plan to shift from oil in thirty years,

we have been reading it for twenty years,

but we stay the course.

At least we have a plan, 

but no one knows

 if that is really enough time

even if we started today

which we don't. 

Drill baby, drill!

 

Hey! Get out of the road! 

Run on the sidewalk!

Never enough pavement for my car.

Spend that infrastructure money on more roads,

build another pipeline,

not a windmill.

 

Peanuts

We never ate peanut butter in our house

not a Jewish food

had to go visit the kids across the street

a white bread family

peanut butter and jelly, not jam

 

So I was mystified by the fuss over  

George Washington Carver

born 1864

he did a lot with peanuts

beyond the butter

such a clever negro.

Every grade school year, 

it was George Washington Carver.

We'll give y'all one.

But only one.

You can have the peanut.

Stick to basket ball.

 

Say the name,

Robert Rilleux

born 1806

chemical engineer

who revolutionized sugar production.

 

Say the name,

Charles Henry Tuner

born 1867

a behavioral scientist 

who pioneered insect behavior.

 

Say the name,

Earnest Everett Just

 born 1883 

an experimental embryologist 

and Woods Hole marine biologist

 

Say the name,

Percy Lavon Julian

born  1899

steroid chemist 

who synthesized medicines from plants.

 

Say the name, 

Katherine Johnson

born 1918

NASA mathematician

crucial to putting 

THE MAN

on the moon.

Say the names.

 

OK so 

Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Y'all can have two,

in two hundred years.

You can have him,

plus the peanut.

 

Stick to basket ball.

 

 

George Washington's Birthday

Playground

Recess, that moment when we spilled out the door
into the free air and sunshine of the expansive open
running loose, playing games in small groups.

But there was one particular day
as clear now as it was half a century ago
when something shifted. 

There was a bifurcation.
Maybe an announcement by the principal I missed?
There were now two: black and white.

Hey, you cannot play with us,
my friends said.  You have to go over there
and be with the white kids.


ABC

 Walter was plainly different,
something gone wrong in the womb,
we all felt for him and treated him kindly.

The teacher was a power addict
I sat in front, teacher's pet.
Until the day she called on Walter.

We looked around,
why call on Walter,
sweet, simple Walter?

Come on Martin, you must know something.
How about your ABCs?
Come up to the front and recite your ABCs.

It was all about  humiliation.
 Walter knew, as we all did, he was not smart.
We watched in horror as Walter stood in front of the class.

 Walter stood rigid, his lower lip quivering.
He started to recite, but then stopped.
Tears streaming down his face-- why are you doing this?

OK Walter, you can sit down,
the teacher was satisfied.
The inferiority of blackness demonstrated.

We rushed out for the ten minute break,
crowded around, come-on, we all know you know.
And proudly he stood before us, and recited.


Shondra

Shondra was tougher than most,
her hair lost to some accident, she wore a wig
that the boys snatched off in the cloak room.
Only once, because she fought them savagely.

She was quiet and alone,
never spoke to anyone,
I was afraid of her,  as was the teacher
who never called on her.

George Washington, the father of our country.
Today we celebrate his birthday.
Astonished we turned to see,
Shondra, her hand thrust high.

Anxiously, the teacher called her,
and Shondra stood up to object:
But George Washington had slaves!
Lots of people had slaves back then, came the reply.

The class went crazy.
Kids were saying: we didn't have slaves, we were slaves!
That was the moment I learned
the voices of authority lie.

Death of Galileo

Since 1642 a Ponderosa Pine stood
on a ridge halfway up the Pino trail
in the Sandia Mountains
looking over the majestic westward expanse,
leading to the Great Divide.

Dead now, it has joined a hillside 
of blackened  brethren succumbed
to bark beetle blight
accelerated by drought and rising temperature
apparent to all who walk these woods.

Too much carbon in the atmosphere
our industrial disease.
Read about it in some newspaper,
or look out the window,
or notice the silence of vanishing birds.

The powerful never want us to believe our eyes.
Galileo. who urged the Bishops to look into his telescope,
and see the moons circling Jupiter,
just like the planets orbiting the sun.
Forced to recant by the inquisition.

The heliocentric idea, already one hundred years old,
What scared the powers that be?
Copernicus’s compendium written in Latin.
Galileo’s dialogue printed in Italian
and available at the corner book store.

Marketing Covid (in their own words)

Do you believe in god
    "in these unprecedented times"
or do you put your faith in an apathetic universe?
    "in times as uncertain as these"
Does a virus have a purpose,
    "we’re all living a new normal"
is there meaning in self replication?
    "even now, some things never change"
Just like us, they are biological machines.
    "For every virus, there is a vaccine … in positivity"
But we must have a greater purpose.
    "our spirit is what unites us"
Something that we create for ourselves.
    "For all the scare mongering, there is also care mongering"
For some, the purpose is to win
    "A bowl of We’re going to be OK”
to collect the biggest pile of chips
    "There’s a glass and a half in everyone"
before the final cashing in.
    "stay strong: Hefty" 
But others feel there is more than this.
    "lets raise a cup"
to be part of a ship of common travelers
    "Thank you for filling the glass with kindness and hope"
sailing to nowhere
    "courage is beautiful"
but laughing and singing
    "delivering rainbows"
just to have some kicks
    "We’re never lost if we can find each other."
for as long as we can make the trip last.

Apocalypse 2020

Every day, it’s the crown virus

drowning out all other concerns,

a barely contained panic.

Meg says, “Don’t panic”,  but only I can hear her.

The rest of you remember wildfires in Australia.

Maybe  you heard that  locusts are swarming in Africa,

and that an earthquake knocked the trumpet from the top of Salt Lake Temple.

Don’t forget, just last year a fire swept through Notre Dame.

It's sounding kind of apocalyptic.

Sounds like the coming of the Messiah,

or the second coming, for most of you,

or the turning of a Karmic cycle for a few of you.

They say, the lord works in mysterious ways.

So let’s look on the bright side.

The young ER nurse dying could be a good thing.

Rehearsal

Crown virus runs wild,
    covert carbon stalks the planet.
 Some shelter in place
    prepare to flee the famine.
 Some work from home     

    plan to escape the drought

Try to expand hospital capacity    

    race to higher ground

Some hunker down   

    save the burning forests

Try to flatten the curve            

   put away the fossil fuels

Build more ventilators

    build a new economy

Some of us wear masks

    every year the spring comes earlier

Some of us will get the vaccine 

   the summers get hotter

Others cannot believe in the unseen

    can we mitigate disaster?

Others ignore what is plain sight

    can we save the birds?

 

Sugar

Would you like cream and sugar?
Well, cream yes,  but sugar is problematic.

Columbus and other white men
brought sugar and then,
slaves on Caribbean plantations,
a hundred thousand Louisiana slaves,
immigrants working Hawaiian fields,
all for white gold, queen sugar.

Now obesity, overview of an epidemic
Diabetes slipping to dialysis;
fatty livers tipping to cirrhosis.
Supported by four billion in annual subsidies.
Don’t get me started on corn syrup.

But then, seduction:
 Just a spoon full of sugar.
Sugar can be the willpower you need to under eat.
Sugar can give foods the sweet taste we know and love.
Some things give solid satisfaction.
Here’s how sugar can help.

Come over here, sugar, you’re my sweetness.
Talkin’ about that spoonful.
Sure, why not?

Thermal Physics

The moment calls me here and now,
but even as it does it has slipped away.
The Universe will remember,
time drawn out over unimaginable distance.
We see all the way back to the beginning,
what once was will always be somewhere.

The Earth is not aging but being driven,
a heat engine pushed to breaking
by 7 billion mostly struggling helpless, innocents
(it would take hundreds of years just to glance at every face)
and a few ruthlessly greedy idiots who want nothing more
than winning.  But it's not a game.

The rule of entropy directs us to oblivion,
no Maxwell's daemon can save us.
So why do we struggle to live, to create?
I am here, I was here, is all we wish to say.
The Universe will save these words,
but leave no one to read them.

Safety

The painted yellow rectangles on the curb,
marking the bus stop at UNM,
read "Safety Zone".

Some people found the sign puzzling,

So to clarify,
they repainted all of the curbs to read,
"Do not stand in safety zone."

I want to be in the safety zone.

Safe for now, safe for today.
Safe for tomorrow.
Safe from being hit by a truck.

We can't be safe for ever.

I tried to be safe,
so I pushed the walk button,
and patiently waited at the  curb.

Safe for today.

Five minutes more or less sitting at my desk,
means nothing, except
when you have a meeting with a truck.

Safe for the moment.

The truck came careening around the corner,
workman in a tear for that Friday beer,
at the end of his manual labor week.

Be safe.

One step less, oblivion;
one step more, stunned relief.
At the 23rd second, I saw the truck.

Be careful. 

In animated slow motion
I watched the truck approach,
its side mirror striking my forehead.

God bless you.

Knocked down but not out,
bashing skull,
tearing hamstring.

Via con dios.

What were you doing in the middle of the road?
I was in the cross walk watching
the seconds count down,  not the street.

Hasta la vista.

Gone back to j-walking now.