by Tabor Elisabeth Flickinger
Haiku Trio: Biology, Chemistry and Physics
Mendel’s Laws
Years of pea plant sex
Grant the seeker ratios
Of heredity.
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
NMR peaks stand
Silent. Hidden structures cast
Micron-thin shadows.
General Relativity
When man discovers
Curved space-time, he glimpses the
Woman form of God.
Microscopy Slide of the Spinal Cord
The spine is built of butterflies;
Each spreads its wings upon a slice
Of sky stained myelin-blue.
When trapped, extracted, scrutinized,
The mottled pinion shows its scales’
Designs of subtle hue
As tinted nerve cell bodies make
The eyelets of the checkerspots
Of caught Nymphalinae.
Meticulous collectors keep
Their beauties under glass, peer through
A lens at their display.
Within each slide-observer’s spine,
Live butterflies hold council, swarm
Together, wild and free.
Quick twitches of their beating wings
Stir currents, raised aloft on drafts
Of electricity.
