anne • sikking

UK MAGNETICS SOCIETY

MagNews - international academic journal 

Prize 2024 - £100

a new prize inspired by ideas from the film Oppenheimer,

where science and humanities are seen as essential partners.

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MAGNETEERS

 

In the tiny, hard-fought, magnetic hold and lift,

we switch, to avoid wear and tear.

We generate this part and that, we test and sift,

among motor, wave, toward some goal –

                                     all too often, way over there.

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Long hours bent over magnetic Earth's prudent thrift,

few strokes of genius compare

with thorough filtering, as understandings shift...

Unseen, unknown, and little praised –

                                   we carry on, without fanfare.

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The race is on to heal the climate threat and rift.

Words are 'combat', 'fight' – like warfare.

Our meek part is to hitch and use what does exist:

the positive and negative,

                                         that stir beneath a nom de guerre.

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The myth of one tsar casting axioms adrift,

walking as if on holy air,

is staggeringly far from the full truth of it.

Scarce one discovery results

                                from any games of solitaire.

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Would that others might see us, not scientific

but part of a firm whole – foursquare.

Let them think of us more like a swallow, a swift,

darting in summer's evening sky,

                                      soaring, god-filled, a spirit's dare.

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For in science there is a spirit, a shape-shift –

old, archaic. Let us beware...

...beyond the study, probes, experiments, and gift,

a meditative mind creates

                                                             fused fuel, changed charge... Sometimes a prayer.

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©Anne Sikking, 2024