Keith Allen Daniels
THE RAVENS
The ravens in the city dump
are loud today, and brash.
A pterodactyl's joined their ranks
to scavenge in the trash.
A flapping tarp, a fallen kite,
it out-competes for food
the raucous birds that claimed the site
and copped an attitude.
The ravens keep their distance, though,
in deference to kin.
Instinctively, they seem to know
their ancient origins—
titanic pterosaurs that flew
unpinioned through the sky,
and bony crested, proudly held
their caudal pennants high.
They feasted, then, on carcasses
of sauropods descried
from high atop the thermal plumes
volcanic vents supplied.
Somehow, somewhen, their fortunes dove,
precipitously fell,
descending into fumaroles
like doorways into Hell—
but phoenix-like they rose from ash,
full-feathered, beaked and clawed...
to feast on heaps of human trash?
I'll stifle my applause.
The ravens in the city dump
are loud today, and brash.
A pterodactyl's joined their ranks
to scavenge in the trash.
CARCEPLEX
in memory of Donald J.
Cram
The chemist crafted cages, prison cells
for molecules intractable, not seen
or rarely seen in free society—
the cyclobutadiene ring, e.g.,
unstable, energetic, caught between
the carceplex's clever bars, compelled
to stick around, do time, and thus reveal
its secrets for a turnkey chemist's zeal.
What diadem for Donald Cram, but crown
of ethers fashioned for a chemist's head?
Such laurel wreaths do not become the dead,
indifferent to the trappings of renown:
that crafty warden, breaking all his rules,
escaped at last his cage of molecules.
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