Spectroscoping

Frances Boyle

Bees see ultraviolet, the vibration of nectar; some snakes 
infrared, the heat of prey. We can’t see much on either 
end of visible light, but our rainbow, like every spectrum, 

is a continuum. full of shades, gradations. Perceived light
fractured into colours, the right frequency, a random
reflection striking our pupils. How rich our words 

for all the calibrations inside red orange yellow green 
blue indigo violet. Our eyes, excited by this minuscule 
slice of the continuous span of energies, are near blind

to the many increments of wavelengths, radio to gamma 
on either side of the seen spectrum. But shadings change, 
demarcations shift with time & culture. What we observe 

won’t stay settled. Isaac Newton’s blue to us is cyan or aqua, 
his indigo our blue. A cool glass of water―where does blue 
become blue-green? Glas in Welsh is both, as is ranh 

in Vietnamese. Before Newton, the rainbow had only five 
colours. He added orange & indigo to reach mystic seven. 
We generate wonders in sevens: the major scale, 

the days of the week. Wonderful the liminal zones 
just beyond the reach of our poor eyes. Adjacent to red, 
wavelengths shade to a non-colour. We can’t discern 

infrared, but our warm bodies radiate in its frequencies. 
Are we love or are we prey? Red, like its near neighbour, 
excites chemical bonds, augments energy to power 

photosynthesis & the mechanics of sight. At the opposite
spectral edge, purpler than purple, ultraviolet is compressed, 
more frantic than the rainbow’s highest band. In/visible, 

but we can see the shortest UV oscillations. Stronger
than our weak eyes, optical fiber transmits data clothed
in a light that hovers just outside the visible spectrum.  

Seven years held in Faerie. We may shift to new phases, shed
our skins, dance in bee-light vibrations of an ethereal realm.
Return, riding on photons, as filaments of newly-named light.

The Science

My poem ‘Spectroscoping’ considers colour, specifically the spectrum of visible light, within the larger electromagnetic spectrum. I examine the nature of a spectrum which, by definition, resists categorisation into hard and fast divisions, so that our naming of colours is necessarily imprecise and fluid, changing with time and culture. I explore the supposedly finite ends of the visible colour spectrum, and what lies immediately beyond either end, i.e. ultraviolet and infrared. Extrapolating from the fact that these non-colours are part of a larger spectrum and that certain animals, including some humans, can “see” them, I allow a moment of fantasy to speculate on how we might shift along and out of the visible spectrum to a newly discovered realm.

The Poet

Frances Boyle (she/her) is a Canadian writer, living in Ottawa. Her latest book is Openwork and Limestone (Frontenac House, 2022). In addition to two earlier poetry books, she is also the author of Tower, a novella (Fish Gotta Swim Editions, 2018), and Seeking Shade, an award-winning short story collection (The Porcupine’s Quill, 2020). Frances’s writing has been chosen for Best Canadian Poetry and Poem in Your Pocket. Recent and forthcoming publications include The Honest Ulsterman, Ink Sweat & Tears, The Lake, The New Quarterly, Thimble Lit, and The Fiddlehead. For more, please visit www.francesboyle.com and follow @francesboyle19 on Twitter/X and Instagram.

Next poem: The Colour of Beer by Steven Simmonds