20 August 2012 Poetry Mash Up Continues… and a Sunset, too.

Science and Poetry Continues!

Poem

At the Seabird Olympics

The seabird’s Darth Vader, the long-tailed jaeger,
Makes his pirate’s patrol, taking his toll on the kittiwake’s hold
of a silvery fish, who wishes instead
that both birds will fumble their dish

Back to that blue roiling ocean, always in motion,
Fat-bellied auklets skip whitecaps like gauntlets, and murres in military line
Haul fish for their chicks who are waiting on cliffs-
far off in the mist - some will dine.

Then shearwaters appear to be held by the air
Gently touching the waves as they glide.
They’ve crossed oceans to get here, to feast and be done here,
they’ve no time to waste to survive.

Where the Bering Sea squeezes past Diomede’s breezes
Through the gates of the Chukchi Sea;
There puffins will pass you and fulmars follow you
looking out from the bridge of the Healy.

It’s the seabird Olympics, staged yearly, its epic;
Started long before you were born.
Their gold medals are chicks fledged,
or being well fed for a 10,000 mile trip home.

You can still see them, but dress warm, its freezing
For the ice is not far behind.
Seabirds work really hard, whirling wings and tongues barbed
so the games will start next year on time.

Kathy Kuletz
From the Healy,
August 2012

Poem

Threadless

Haikus are easy
But sometimes they don’t make sense.
Oceanography.

HJM, Biological Oceanography graduate student at UAF

Poem

Oh Ice, Oh Ice

Never forgiving and not very nice.

On our hull you let out your screams

Never allowing us to remember our dreams

although you are beautiful in the endless sun

Remember we must - you are deadlier then a large gun.

Cruel and unforgiving you must be

To forever remind us that survival is key

Life giving to us - you are not

to remain with you we would surely rot

mother to the seal the walrus and bear

we continue to venture out on a wing and a prayer

with all the danger why do we dare

we go in the name of science

we only wish for your compliance

water may be your daughter

we are not here to slaughter

Onward in the name of science

we care not of your defiance

earth may be your son

it matter not for we have won

Kurt Stewart MSTC

Final thoughts

Everyone is working many hours to complete as much testing and sampling as possible with occasional breaks to look at walruses, polar bears, the sky, and ice. If I were to write a poem about the scientists’ life these past couple of days, it would go something like this:

Work, eat (maybe), work, walrus, work, eat (maybe), work, bear, work, eat (maybe), work, eat (maybe), midnight sunset, work, sleep (maybe). REPEAT.

We are working at an astonishing place on Earth. I am thankful to have this opportunity to participate in the science to understand the complexities of this pristine environment.