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Periodic Table |
Too small to be perceived by the senses,
they are eternal and have many different shapes,
and they can cluster together to create
things that are perceivable.
Democritus, 430 B.C.
Onward they march
in their little boxes.
Hydrogen, Helium,
Lithium, Beryllium.
The gods get theirs:
Mercury, Neptune,
and Uranus: Uranium,
Pluto: Plutonium—
genii we’d like
to put back in their lamps.
Then Einstein, Fermi
and Rutherford
get theirs, too—
highly radioactive all.
At last comes
Ununoctium,
dab of colorless,
odorless (but noble) gas
lasting under
one one-thousandth
of a second—
but then,
what’s time anyway
to an element?
copyright 2007
Martin
Dickinson |
