JOCELYN BELL BURNELL
>
If we assume we’ve arrived:
we stop searching, we stop developing
>
proud pulsars
>
residue
of massive stars
collapsing into
a neutron star
strobing supernova
>
spherical and dense
the size of a bustling city
more mass than our sun
>
beams of electromagnetic radiation
whirling from its magnetic poles
recurring signals – palpitating refrains from space
>
– first observed in 1967
by Jocelyn Bell Burnell
and Antony Hewish –`
>
Someone takes a photo of student Burnell:
Look happy dear, you’ve just made a discovery!
>
in 1974 Hewish receives
a Nobel Prize in Physics
(alongside Martin Ryle)
>
millisecond pulsars can siphon matter
and momentum from its companion
>
Burnell wins other weighty awards
an abundance of all her significant work
.
she donates a substantial sum to further
those who are most often ignored in science—
in hope they strive becoming physics researchers
>
pulsars radiating light
>
in multiple wavelengths
>
BIRD CALLS
>
We’re keeping an invisible chart
delineating the days between every
>
face to face conversation. We begin
to get creative in confinement: turn
>
ourselves into maple origami, fashion
hammocks out of blankets, craft vessels
>
from old vinyl. Shape bread into words.
Invert every room. We are undergoing
>
lasting transformations. It’s impossible
listening to Charles Mingus standing
>
still. You just want to scoop yourself up
and parachute from on top of the house
>
as sonorous notes chase you, freefalling.
Each breath outside becomes triumphant.
.
Anything to nurture the fierce yearning
the longing for touch, even predictability.
<
We reach out and deliver daisies and cake.
Envelopes with wine red pencil marks. Trick
>
cards with faces. We stretch out our ears into
the afternoon sun listening to the wattlebird.
>
They sing in sparkling paragraphs. No
thought or care of yesterdays or tomorrows
>
or any afterlife. But we do. Always
carrying this extended memory with us.
>
Constructing our own symphonies
of everyone’s shared experiences –
>
united tapestry of single notes

Alicia Sometimes is a writer and broadcaster. Her poems are published in Best Australian Science Writing, Best Australian Poems, Meanjin, Griffith Review and more. She is director and co-writer of the science-poetry planetarium shows, Elemental and Particle/Wave. Her TedxUQ talk about the passion of combining art with science can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch Website: www.aliciasometimes.com
Hey good poems nice and precise bitey..
I truly love Mingus he’s like my ultimate favourite musician his music is always fresh always astonishing and makes U move like yr poetry
Ah, such multidisciplinary drama & respect for knowledge/place celebrated in lush lyricism – yes, very fine!
Just loved them. Thank you.