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Poetry and Science – Wilbur, Nemerov, Haines, Updike

February 6, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

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[ 4 poems with a scientific bent ]
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Epistemology
 . 
I
Kick at the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones:
But cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones.
 . 
II
We milk the cow of the world, and as we do
We whisper in her ear, “You are not true.”
 . 
Richard Wilbur (1921-2017)
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Seeing Things
 . 
Close as I ever came to seeing things
The way the physicists say things really are
Was out on Sudbury Marsh one summer eve
When a silhouetted tree against the sun
Seemed at my sudden glance to be afire:
A black and boiling smoke made all its shape.
 . 
Binoculars resolved the enciphered sight
To make it clear the smoke was a cloud of gnats,
Their millions doing such a steady dance
As by the motion of the many made the one
Shape constant and kept it so in both the forms
I’d thought to see, the fire and the tree.
 . 
Strike through the mask? you find another mask,
Mirroring mirrors by analogy
Make visible. I watched till the greater smoke
Of night engulfed the other, standing out
On the marsh amid a hundred hidden streams
Meandering down from Concord to the sea.
 . 
Howard Nemerov (1920-1991)
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from the installation EXQUISITE CREATURES: CHRISTOPHER MARLEY
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Little Cosmic Dust Poem
 . 
Our of the debris of dying stars,
this rain of particles
that waters the waste with brightness;
 . 
the sea-wave of atoms hurrying home,
collapse of the giant, unstable guest who cannot stay;
 . 
the sun’s heart reddens and expands,
his mighty aspiration is lasting,
as the shell of his substance
one day will be white with frost.
 . 
In the radiant field of Orion
great hordes of stars are forming,
just as we see every night,
fiery and faithful to the nd.
 . 
Out of the cold and fleeing dust
that is never and always,
the silence and waste to come —
 . 
this arm, this hand,
my voice, your face, this love.
 . 
John Haines (1924-2011)
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❀    ❀    ❀
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Cosmic Gall
 . 
Neutrinos, they are very small.
+++ They have no charge and have no mass
And do not interact at all.
The earth is just a silly ball
+++ To them, though which they simply pass
Like dustmaids down a drafty hall
+++ Or photons through a sheet of glass.
+++ They snub the most exquisite gas,
Ignore the most substantial wall,
+++ Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass,
Insult the stallion in his stall,
+++ And, scorning barriers of class,
Infiltrate you and me! Like tall
and painless guillotines, they fall
+++ Down through our heads into the grass.
At night, they enter at Nepal
+++ And pierce the lover and his lass
from underneath the bed — you call
+++ It wonderful; I call it crass.
 . 
John Updike (1932-2009)
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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These poems are from The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics, this year’s Christmas present to me from Linda. Essays by Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, and Stephen Hawking jostle up against chapters by Annie Dillard, Isaac Asimov, and Lewis Thomas. And then comes the section of poetry! Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and Gerard Manley Hopkins open to be followed by these four 20th century poets, and there is even a poem by James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), titan of electromagnetism and whose equations remain the bedrock of classical physics. Who knew? The following paragraphs are from the section introduction, The Poetry of Science:
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+++ The scepticism that many poets display toward science reflects, and to some extent perpetuates, the myth that science is cold and inhuman, poetry warm and romantic. Yet science is more romantic than is generally realized, poetry less so, and the scientists and the poets ultimately are allies. Both are creative and unpredictable (and therefore dangerous). Neither can tolerate authoritarianism, blind obedience, or cant. And both, to do their best work, must draw on aesthetic as well as intellectual resources; a logical but ugly mathematical theorem is as unsatisfactory as a pretty but silly sonnet.
 . 
+++ This is not to say that scientists should try to emulate poets, or that poets should turn proselytes for science. Poetry and science are both too powerful to benefit from so bland and bourgeois a marriage, and their relationship is likely to remain stormy so along as each remains vital. But they need each other, and the world needs them both.
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The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics, edited by Timothy Ferris. Little, Brown and Company, Boston Toronto London. © 1991 by Timothy Ferris.
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from the installation EXQUISITE CREATURES: CHRISTOPHER MARLEY
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . every Saturday I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
 . 
 . 

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Maura High – Field as Auditorium

January 30, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

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[ 2 poems by Maura High ]
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Excursions in Moss
+++++ — for Barbara
 . 
They were here, all this time,
in this same world,
here for the seeing:
 . 
green shag and starfield, clumps, pinheads,
frilled with lichen,
 . 
and poking up through them the green
first leaves of violet, wood sorrel,
for example, among the ephemera —
 . 
here, in the piedmont of North Carolina,
all the greens in creation:
a landscape within landscapes,
slow as,
quiet as,
 . 
as back along
the rims of lakes and drainages in the early Cambrian.
In this same old world:
the same creep and cling
and drill into the surface
 . 
with their fragile rhizoids, into rock fissures,
now bark, now exposed root,
 . 
into the Anthropocene and still
green between paving stone,
on verges, stuck fast
 . 
to rocks along the banks of Bolin Creek,
down a grit-and-gravel driveway.
 . 
A green gift
my friend gave me:
moss scrapings, from her yard
 . 
over in the next county;
in late summer
 . 
the waggly spore capsules
pop open, and a million spores float
off and up into whatever wind.
 . 
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Reprise
+++++ — for Frances
 . 
One leaf falls from the hickory
+++++ outside my window—
 . 
+++++ a slow loop right,
an about turn, and squiggle—
 . 
so cursory a gesture, it looks
+++++ like something written
 . 
+++++ in an alphabet of leaves:
a charm against insects
 . 
and woodpecker; a plea
+++++ for all the leaves that fall,
 . 
+++++ blacken, and rot, and leach
into the earth, and rise again
 . 
to new petiole, new leaf,
+++++ singing the green song of desire
 . 
+++++ and the brown of thrift;
the whispery, creaky name
 . 
the tree gives itself;
+++++ or the name we have given it,
 . 
+++++ full of ourselves and our own
histories, as a child
 . 
writes her given name and sees
+++++ herself there, her first self-portrait.
 . 
Maura High
from Field as Auditorium, Redhawk Publications, The Catawba Community College Press; Hickory NC; © 2025.
 . 
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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Maura High speaks the language of wild. She writes in an alphabet of leaves. Her poems sometimes withdraw entirely from the touch or consideration of human presence and become encompassed entirely by field, by forest – crownbeard setting seed in the wilding meadow, Bolin Creek about its business of undercutting a bank of clay, moss creating soil from stone. Maura translates for us the deep language of life and of time. Where did this come from? Where are we going?
 . 
As I read Maura High’s poetry, I consider the many lives I have overlooked, forgotten, ignored. I am reminded to listen for the soft peeps of sparrows and finches settling into the shrubbery at sunset. Listen closer – the seep of water in the dirt beneath my feet and the striving of rootlets and mycelia. Closer yet – the movement of seasons, long connections across time, encircling connections gathering life and nudging forward. From careful observation and contemplation of the unremarkable features of a creek, a tree, a flower, Maura creates an opportunity for us, her readers, to participate in the most remarkable story of all.
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❀
 . 
Maura High was born in Wales but grew up on Planet Earth. She has established tender rhizoids in piedmont North Carolina but the wind is apt to blow her to distant climes at any moment. These two poems are from her newest book, Field as Auditorium, from Redhawk. She has also published The Garden of Persuasions, winner of the Jacar Press chapbook contest (2013), and Stone, Water, Time in collaboration with artist Lyric Kinard, Lyric Art Publishing (2019). Sample more of her poetry at MauraHigh.com.
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . every Saturday I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
 . 
Doughton Park Tree 2021-10-23
 . 

Posted in ecology, Ecopoetry, Imagery, poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Hale Chatfield – So Much Wanting

January 23, 2026 by GriffinPoetry

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[ 2 poems from Hale Chatfield’s Greatest Hits ]
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So Much of Wanting is Vague
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So much of wanting is vague
we are lucky to have words.
 . 
So much of wanting is vague,
unnameable desire. The tides
within our cells yearn outward.
 . 
We might tell them they yearn
to sizzle against nameless stars.
 . 
And if we are articulate,
as we are articulated matter,
we name our desire — make it
matter specifically. We focus and sharpen
our dullest pain with taxonomy.
 . 
Without words wanting is vague.
As children we struggle to invent new languages
and we carry our vocabularies,
like banners, into nations of longing
where we are sovereign.
 . 
For simplicity we elongate our vowels.
We want more. We want peace.
All. We want it all.
 . 
Without words wanting is vague.
We accrue our nouns. We pin them
to our wishes like medals.
 . 
Hale Chatfield (1936-2000)
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❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Etude: The Frailty of Consequence
 . 
O yes, no
I remember the word:
I’d toyed with inconsequential,
but what he had actually said was
these poems are so trivial
I could just weep.
 . 
I have sometimes wanted to weep
myself.
 . 
For the same reason.
 . 
Because everything one loves
is so trivial.
The stars are trivial.
The ocean is trivial.
Olive trees seen from the top of a mountain
are trivial, and seen close up
they are infinitely more trivial.
 . 
If I could, I’d write something
so trivial we would all weep.
 . 
All of us in the world.
 . 
We’d prop our heads on our hands.
We’d shed tiny trivial tears.
 .  . 
Hale Chatfield (1936-2000)
❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Hale Chatfield’s comments on these poems:
 . 
“So Much of Wanting is Vague” is kind of oetic I think: our moods become poems in our heads, attributing our joys and sorrows to persons and events (though the moods may just come and go inside us innocently and perhaps without any but metabolic causes). 
“Etude: The Frailty of Consequence” is the happy outcome of a rejection slip from an editor who sent back an envelope of my poems lamenting that he’d just read over a hundred poems, and, having saved my bunch for last, was rendered nearly tearful by their disappointing triviality.”
 . 
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
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Hale Chatfield was my wife’s first college professor. Between her sophomore and junior years at Aurora High School, Linda took a summer semester English course at nearby Hiram College. Writing intensive. Dr. Chatfield was ruthless on grammar and style. But he was also incredibly funny. Linda ended up graduating from Hiram, a self-designed major in Medieval Studies, with two additional courses from Chatfield. They left their marks on each other. Twenty years after graduating, Linda returned to campus to use the Hiram library. As she walked across the quad a tall figure approached. When he drew near Chatfield looked up and said, “Hello, Linda.”
 . 
Jennifer Bosveld at Pudding House was my first editor and publisher. I was a finalist in her poetry chapbook contest and she helped me put the finishing touches on Barb Quill Down in 2004. During three decades of Jennifer’s fiery leadership, Pudding House published dozens of anthologies and over 2,000 chapbooks, including the infamous Greatest Hits Series. Jennifer would invite a poet she admired to select a handful of her or his favorite poems and publish them with commentary. Hale Chatfield was #4 in the Series. Jennifer Bosveld left her mark on me: I still treasure the manifesto she included as preface in every single collection she published:
 . 
Publisher’s Position Statement
on the Value of Poetry Arts
This chapbook is limited edition fine art from the poet
Hale Chatfield
whose work you support for a few cents per page. you are not buying paper and printer’s ink by weight. You selected language art that took as long to create as paintings or other fine art. Pudding House caters to those who understand the value of the poet’s good work. We are in business to make and enhance reputations rather that to assure profits for our press. Manuscripts are chosen on the basis of their contributions to the literary arts and to the popular culture. On behalf of a large community of contemporary poets, this poet is particular, and Pudding House Publications, thank you for your patronage.
 . 
 . 
 . 
Hale Chatfield (1936-2000) was professor and dean at Hiram College in northeastern Ohio and founded the Hiram Poetry Review. Besides publishing sixteen books, including eight poetry collections, he created an educational television series on poetry with NBC-TV. He was an early proponent of computers in education and founded Chatfield Software, Inc. At Linda’s first encounter, he introduced the class to a spreadsheet of grammar and style he used to mark their papers, including the dreaded “D-13″ = cliché.
..
…
…
 . 
Jennifer Bosveld (1945-2014) was a powerhouse advocate for the literary arts in Columbus, Ohio and throughout the region. She founded Pudding House, at one time the nation’s largest small press for poetry. She also worked as a suicide-prevention counselor and directed Ohio State University’s Disaster Research Center and the Friends of the Homeless. Jennifer received the Pioneer Award of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, which she co-founded in 1978; a Dispatch Community Achievement Award for cultural advancement in 1986; and an Ohio Arts Council poetry fellowship in 1996.
 . 
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❀    ❀    ❀    ❀    ❀
 . 
Thank you for visiting Verse and Image:
. . . . . every Friday I present one or two poems I’ve read this week that particularly speak to me;
. . . . . every Saturday I present one or two poems submitted by YOU, my readers.
 . 
If you would like to offer a poem for consideration, either by a favorite author or your own work, please view these GUIDELINES for Saturday Readers Share:
 . 
 . 
If you would like to receive an email each time a post appears, please SUBSCRIBE to Verse and Image using the button on the Home Page.
 . 
If you have a hard time finding the SUBSCRIBE button on this WordPress site, you can send me your email address and I will add you to the subscriber list. Send your request to
 . 
COMMENTS@GRIFFINPOETRY.COM
 . 
Thanks again for joining the conversation.
 . 
– Bill
 . 
 . 

Posted in Imagery | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments »

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