"What is Time?"

This poem was written to Chris on our fifth wedding anniversary (June 12th, 1970) It came at the end of my doctoral thesis, so I was thinking about time as well as Chris.

Five years ago I married you yesterday.

Five years, that's a long time, normally.

But what is time, but an infinity of presents

whose duration in passing is measured

by the boredom of the moment.

Yet, if one's set of moments is made

richer through love, time passes quickly.

Five years ago I married you yesterday.

"Chiaroscuro"

The next poem was written on a whim the first time I simultaneously encountered and understood the word, "chiaroscuro," strong contrasts between light and dark.  I was 60 at the time. (I am slow, but persistent.) It was used in connection with a discussion of the art of Albert Pinkham Ryder (likely a distant relative-a project for some dreary winter day when I'm 111).  He has a fascination with the play of light and dark colors (and themes) in his paintings, as seen in "The Racetrack of Death," below.  To its right, is a photo of one of my favorite themes for picture taking, the view from our back deck.   For what I hope are obvious reasons, I have given this photo the title, "Chiaroscuro."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Albert_Pinkham_Ryder_002.jpg

Now for the poem.

Chiaroscuro

Our life is like unto a tree,

both dark and light it must see.

The dark is needful for its water.

The light brings sun and thus its power.

If all were one, or perhaps the other,

growth would never be the way.  But,

because we have both sun and water,

growth occurs thus day-by-day.

For even though each comes singly,

the effects of each become co-mingly:

The water is

needful for

 the sun,

to allow its

purpose to

 be done.

The dark is needful for the light

to make our lives both straight and right.

Carlos F. A. Pinkham, May 29th, 2003

The week of dark and light - rain and sun.

Although the philosophical meaning of this poem should be obvious: light and dark in our lives make us grow, the biological may not.  It is a reference to the two parts of photosynthesis, sometimes referred to as the light and dark reaction because the former requires (sun)light while the latter does not and thus can occur at night (although it mostly occurs in the day).  The reference to the “sun and thus its power” acknowledges the conversion of the energy in photons from the sun into chemical energy of ATP and the stripping of hydrogen from water to produce the hydrogen-transport molecule, NADPH, in the thylacoid of the chloroplasts of the plant.  The reference to the “dark is needful for the water” is not as clear.  The water is half of the necessary input, carbon dioxide is the other.  The joining of the two in the cytoplasm or stroma of the chloroplast using the energy of ATP and the H of the NADPH ultimately produces sugar through processes involving the Calvin cycle.  The sugar is then used as a building block to ultimately form the tree.  Thus both light, and water and carbon dioxide are needed for growth of the tree.  The details of this process reveal the “co-mingly” part, that can only be crudely glimpsed in the above summary.

"Boning Up"

This next poem and the example of alliteration were developed to help my students learn how the two hormones regulating calcium balance worked.  The long explanation is this:  The thyroid gland produces calcitonin which causes osteoblasts to increase their activity by extracting calcium from the blood and depositing it in the mineral matrix of bone.  The parathyroid gland produces parathyroid hormone (duh!) which causes osteoclasts to increase their activity by eroding the mineral matrix of bone to release calcium to the blood.  In this way (and through other mechanisms), they collectively maintain homeostasis of calcium in the blood.  Since calcium is the electrolyte in our body with the largest number of diverse roles, this is an important dance.

I make sure my students understand the learning principle that when you have two opposing facts to memorize, if you have a way to memorize one, you automatically will have the other one memorized.  This principle is employed in the following poem, perhaps one of the shortest mnemonic poems there is:

Calcitonin

Calcibone-in

Hopefully, it's meaning is obvious.  With calcitonin, calcium goes into bones.

However, the story is not over yet.  We need to be sure we know which of the two classes of osteocytes, calcitonin influences.  Using the trick of alliteration learned in English 101, we have, "blasts build bone."  Now you have all the tools you need to understand these two vital hormones.

"Hormones and moaning"

This next poem, like the former, was developed to help my students learn which hormone affects mood and how it does it:

Low Serotonin

Lo, Sarah moanin'

By now, you should realize I am a man of few words and those words are given to word play.

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter/hormone released in the brain.  When its levels are low, the mood is blue, hence the poem.

"Word Play"

In high school, our English teacher (Chris and I had the same one) loved alliteration.  I guess that's why I love it too.  This is a play on words and alliteration:

In our palace

We have pellets

On our pallets.

Return to Mentiscopia