Everything Takes Time

Patricia Hemminger

Bees have to move very fast to stay still. 

— David Foster Wallace

A chipmunk, long tail erect, darts across
the cedar fence, a tightrope walker, 
acorn ballast bulging in her pouches.

Two fledglings deep in sedge and marigolds
test their wings, red breasts expand, feathers
spread apart then overlap again.

Light waves’ transcendent speed outstrips 
by far an asteroid’s velocity, guarantees 
these scenes emerge instantaneously. 

Like lovers clasped together, hidden atoms 
in the air hurtle past, surpass the speed 
of passenger planes, silver trails streak the sky.

Birdsong’s warbled waves emerge, rippling out
faster than a maglev train, porpoise-shaped, floating 
over rails, like yogis who appear to levitate.

Bees hover over hollyhock blossoms that proffer 
nectar on spikes as tall as harvest-ready rice,
beating their wings over two hundred times a second.

Why then, does it feel so still here 
in the garden waiting for you to emerge,
yellow daylilies opening to the sun?

The Science

The poem contrasts what appears to us as reality with the scientific reality: the speed of light, sound waves, and unseen atoms and molecules in air that allow us to see, hear and breathe. We do not see that bees’ wings as they hover over flowers are beating over 200 times a second. The emergence of light waves and sound waves create our reality. The poem describes how a woman experiences stillness waiting in her garden for her baby to be born and the scientific reality that everything is in fact in constant motion.

The Poet

Patricia Hemminger is a science and environmental writer and is currently executive producer of a documentary focused on green chemistry solutions to environmental pollution. She holds a PhD in chemistry and is a graduate of NYU’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and of Drew University’s MFA Poetry Program. Her poems have been published in Spillway, The Blue Nib, Tiny Seed Literary Journal, River Heron Review, Twyckenham Notes, and Streetlight Magazine, among others. Her chapbook What Do We Know of Time? is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press in October 2022.

Next poem: Ghost Sign by André Silva