Physics

I'm still looking through my archives. I've always been a bit of a packrat, an inherited trait — my mother is a teacher of English and Literature; Dad teaches History (indeed, he has even taught a certain Elvish historian before). I visited Dad at his office on Monday; as always, it was amazing to see the range of his current reading. He conspiratorially and with a glint in his eye confided to me that he had another roomful of books stashed away in a corner room. My estimate is that he must have around 12,000 books.

My parents have always been precious to me, and in these autumnal years, even more so. I feel more fortunate each day to have them. Although on occasion quirky, their advice has always been sound. They have always been supportive: sometimes tacitly, sometimes overtly, sometimes subversively. And they have never ever made me feel like the child of a lesser god.

But, back to my digging around. Here's a poem written on 10 May 1985. I cannot remember what I was doing that day.

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Physics

Let us take a rod, light and extensible;
Place it between the masses, and watch it stretch.

Kill for us the cattle on a thousand hills;
Count and label, care not what it is we make.

Trace the light fantastic and insensible;
Mark the needle tracks of every human sketch.

Suspend a man: on him hang a thousand ills;
At this turning moment does his body break?