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The Wrong Sun
Celestial mechanics state
That planets swing at steady rate
Around their sun, but there’s a flaw,
Quite rare, but present in the law.
A chance of one in trillions may
Distort dimensions, lead astray
A faithful globe ere orbit’s done,
And switch its path to the wrong sun.
It’s not a cataclysm dire.
No earthquakes, tidal waves or fire,
The stars in heaven seem unchanged
Although the world has been estranged.
It spins about as once it did,
Before from proper course it slid.
But life’s no longer quite as fun
When you now orbit the wrong sun.
The clouds now cluster in the sky
To hide false light from errant eye.
The richest reds and deepest blues
Have taken bland and ochre hues,
While certain shades of color green
Are frankly no more to be seen.
The golden light has gotten dun,
When shone on us from the wrong sun.
And now your morning cup of tea,
Which once was sweet and lemony
Now hints at grass and gasoline.
The butter has a silver sheen,
And your fresh eggs, however fried,
Shall never show their sunny side.
The rudest travesties are spun,
When we’ve been caught by the wrong sun.
While outside, birds may be observed
To fly in paths no longer curved,
But bent at fifty-five degrees,
While every leaf on all the trees
Is thrumming with a constant hum
That knocks the inchworms out of plumb.
The bugs don’t know which way to run
When we’re ensnared by the wrong sun.
Across the land, the cities wait,
For everyone is sorely late.
The roads and sidewalks feel like glue,
And are best forded by canoe,
While network cables coil in knots
To write out silly verse in spots.
You’ll seek for reasons, there are none
That you can find ‘neath the wrong sun.
So let us rise together! Flee
Our blackened eggs and grassy tea,
With stoutened hearts and red blood true,
Set nature right, and write anew,
And sail our boats through concrete lots
To reconnect our quantum dots,
Til all together, we have won
And made escape from the wrong sun.
That planets swing at steady rate
Around their sun, but there’s a flaw,
Quite rare, but present in the law.
A chance of one in trillions may
Distort dimensions, lead astray
A faithful globe ere orbit’s done,
And switch its path to the wrong sun.
It’s not a cataclysm dire.
No earthquakes, tidal waves or fire,
The stars in heaven seem unchanged
Although the world has been estranged.
It spins about as once it did,
Before from proper course it slid.
But life’s no longer quite as fun
When you now orbit the wrong sun.
The clouds now cluster in the sky
To hide false light from errant eye.
The richest reds and deepest blues
Have taken bland and ochre hues,
While certain shades of color green
Are frankly no more to be seen.
The golden light has gotten dun,
When shone on us from the wrong sun.
And now your morning cup of tea,
Which once was sweet and lemony
Now hints at grass and gasoline.
The butter has a silver sheen,
And your fresh eggs, however fried,
Shall never show their sunny side.
The rudest travesties are spun,
When we’ve been caught by the wrong sun.
While outside, birds may be observed
To fly in paths no longer curved,
But bent at fifty-five degrees,
While every leaf on all the trees
Is thrumming with a constant hum
That knocks the inchworms out of plumb.
The bugs don’t know which way to run
When we’re ensnared by the wrong sun.
Across the land, the cities wait,
For everyone is sorely late.
The roads and sidewalks feel like glue,
And are best forded by canoe,
While network cables coil in knots
To write out silly verse in spots.
You’ll seek for reasons, there are none
That you can find ‘neath the wrong sun.
So let us rise together! Flee
Our blackened eggs and grassy tea,
With stoutened hearts and red blood true,
Set nature right, and write anew,
And sail our boats through concrete lots
To reconnect our quantum dots,
Til all together, we have won
And made escape from the wrong sun.
I feel like I was supposed to get a message from this. It really seems to be exhorting me to stick with the right sun, but I never got a concrete conclusion from it. I can assign some vague meanings to it, but I can't be sure the author even intended one. Structurally, it never quite settles into a steady meter. After the first couple stanzas, it gets much closer, but the last line of each never fits the stress pattern. No problem with the rhymes.
Whimsical, I'd call it:
And I quite like it right up to the last stanza. There, I was expecting to find some equally whimsical method to correct the whole Wrong Sun problem. Give me that, and I'll be all aboard.
As >>Pascoite noted, the rhythm gets a little lumpy here and there--the line "Quite rare, but present in the law", for instance, wants to make the naturally long word "quite" unstressed and the naturally short word "in" stressed, and the line "Are frankly no more to be seen" does the same with the long word "more" in an unstressed spot and the short word "to" in a stressed spot. But fun, though!
Mike
And I quite like it right up to the last stanza. There, I was expecting to find some equally whimsical method to correct the whole Wrong Sun problem. Give me that, and I'll be all aboard.
As >>Pascoite noted, the rhythm gets a little lumpy here and there--the line "Quite rare, but present in the law", for instance, wants to make the naturally long word "quite" unstressed and the naturally short word "in" stressed, and the line "Are frankly no more to be seen" does the same with the long word "more" in an unstressed spot and the short word "to" in a stressed spot. But fun, though!
Mike