Poetry with Music

Yttrium, from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#39, Y) by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Yttrium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#39, Y)
7/14/13

Recently NASA sent a rocket
to collide with a comet
to gather comet dust,
so they could learn about comets,
which contain the primordial parts
of what started this solar system.

A compact disc bearing my name
was mounted on the impactor
spacecraft shot into space
on this Deep Impact mission.

Although this was the first NASA
mission with my name on it,
it was also the first NASA mission
to learn about what’s deep inside
a comet.

The rocket combustion chamber
that shot this impactor spacecraft
on it’s collision course
with Comet Tempel 1,
had a silver-colored lining
of an alloy of nickel, chromium,
aluminum and Yttrium.
Yttrium makes sense, because
Yttrium has been used
in places from MRI scanners
(to help us heal)
to CRT tubes on TV sets
(to help us see).
Yttrium makes element
compounds stronger
(good for stellar travel)…
Besides, the fact that Yttrium
is colorless, odorless,
and not naturally magnetic
gives it an added plus
while being a part of the launching
of the rocket I tacked my name onto
when looking for a comet.
It’ll help us see more than
what’s inside our bodies, or
what a cathode ray tube could —
it may help us see
where we came from
in this solar system too.

Ytterbium, poem from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#70, Yb) by Chicago poet Janet Kuypers

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Ytterbium

Janet Kuypers

from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#70, Yb)
(with references to the poem “Writing Your Name ”)
11/15/13

I’ve searched for you.

Though others may say otherwise,
I know you’re not at all rare —
so I’ll still keep searching.

You’ve always been on time
whenever I’ve wanted you,
but you seem to leave
that fire in the air as you leave…
And you always escape me,
like you slip between my toes
as I’m walking along the beach,
like grains of complex sand,
each grain a nearly microscopic
crystalline rock.

Like you’re minute crystal,
sliding by me
as I walk on by.

I know you’ve always
mixed well with others,
so I’ll go that beach.
I’ll sit there
and take a stick
and write your name
in that precious sand.

I’ll check my watch —
how long have I
been searching?

I’ll run my hands
along those grains of sand.
I’ll study those compounds
making those grains of sand,
those ragged crystalline stones.
Those crystalline stones remind me
of the shards of doped glass
that shattered
when I saw you last.

And now it’s been so long
that I’ve been looking for you.
I’ll check my watch again.

I’ll pull out my pocket
infrared laser light pen.
I’ll shine it on the sand.
I’ll look to see
if anything
reflects light
in different colors back to me,
wondering what I’d see
if my eyes could see
in infrared light
in my search for you.

As I said,
I’ll so anything
in my search
to find you.

I’ll check the time again.
My watch has to be on time….

Because I don’t care
what anyone says.
I wrote your name
in the sand,
and if the elements
wash away your name tonight,
I will be back tomorrow
to write it again.

White Phosphorus, poem from the “Periodic Table of poetry” series by Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers

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White Phosphorus

Janet Kuypers

Bonus poem from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series, #15, P
9/30/13)

Seeing bombs from Viet Nam
and the white smoke rising —
with each bomb exploding,
I knew
that smoke…
It was Willie Pete,
white Phosphorus —
you couldn’t put it out
once it started burning.
This stuff would
destroy the forests
foreign to our
U.S. troops.

I know you can’t understand.
But I wanted you to know
that I haven’t felt close
to anyone
or anything
in years.

It sounds sick,
but seeing that footage,
seeing that white smoke
from that file footage,
it brought it all back to me.
It brought the emotions
flooding back to me
like it was yesterday.

Everything that seems
so volatile
about that war,
in a way
has become a part of me,
right down to my DNA.
You look at your tv screen
and think it makes no sense,
but…
It’s a part of me.
I know I’m old now,
I know it’s only
a small part of me,
but I know I need it.
I can’t explain why,
but I do.

When you see the destruction
of Willie Pete…
Yeah, we knew what it was,
white Phosphorus,
but all of us called it that,
it was just easier
to say it then,
but…
When you see the destruction
of that white Phosphorus,
you think of it
on some existential level,
like “oh, violence is bad,”
but when I see those
bombs going off,
and when I think of
what it was like
to live in that war,
that Willie Pete —
that white Phosphorus —
to us, that was our key
to getting through that hell.
You can’t understand,
but that
was the closest we had
to getting out alive.