Tsunami

TSUNAMI

   A soliton is
   a singularity
   of wave
   motion, an edge
   traveling just
   that way. We saw
   one, once
   filmed moving heedlessly
   cross
   a platinum surface.
   Solitons pass
   through
   each
   other
   unperturbed.

   You are a wave.
   Not standing, nor
   traveling, satisfying
   no equation.
   You are a wave
   which will not be (Fourier)
   analyzed.
   You are a wave; in
   your eyes I sink
   willingly.

   Not solitons,
   we can't pass through
   unaltered.

Roald Hoffmann is the Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters at Cornell University. In 1981 he received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with Kenichi Fukui). As a writer, Hoffmann has carved out a land between science, poetry, and philosophy, through many essays and three books, Chemistry Imagined, with artist Vivian Torrence; The Same and Not the Same and Old Wine (translated into six languages), New Flasks: Reflections on Science and Jewish Tradition, with Shira Leibowitz Schmidt. Hoffmann has also published several works of poetry: The Metamict State, Gaps and Verges, Memory Effects, Soliton, and most recently, in Spanish, Catalista. He has also co-written a play with fellow chemist Carl Djerassi, entitled Oxygen, which has been performed worldwide. translated into ten languages. A second play by Roald Hoffmann. Should've, had its initial workshop production in Edmonton, Canada, in 2006. Entertaining Science, a monthly cabaret Roald runs at the Cornelia Street Cafe in Greenwich Village, has become the hot cheap ticket in NYC.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning