The Friday Poem on 21/06/2024
The deliciousness of this poem rests (lightly) on the reader’s prior knowledge of Sir Isaac Newton and the story about the apple, upon which Newton’s theory of gravity was allegedly based. The addition of a contemporary dog to the whole business of seventeenth-century physics is just as reasonable as the apple story, while the carefully paced, beautifully serious diction allows the reader to circumvent not just scientific hypotheses but the management of life itself from Derek’s point of view. The throwing of sticks is a serious business. Gravity can be a light matter.
Derek’s Thoughts on Bodies in Motion
Sir Isaac Newton delivered an apple pie the other day.
Wanted to give it to my dog Derek
as a token of thanks for his help with the writing of Principia:
said that Derek’s insight on the trajectory of sticks,
projected and in flight through the resisting media of air,
had led him to consider the hypothetical motions of celestial bodies.
Derek mused:
shared his further thoughts on the notion of gravity
and how Newton’s laws of inertia and acceleration,
while perfectly acceptable in terms of portraying
the orbit of moons or falling apples in Lincolnshire,
left him feeling there were extra mysteries to be discovered,
and that if Newton had the space and time in his busy schedule,
he’d like to walk and talk about it some more
and perhaps Newton could throw a few sticks on the way.
