NaPoMo NZ Day 1 (October 1) GOLD

[Achebe]

Rutherford

Make me a tube, clear glass, 
the length of a man,
one end exposed to silver-white
blackening in the air
as its decay phosphoresces
in a neat pattern. Remove the air.
Insert a foil of thinnest gold. 
Observe.

Let others wallow in greed
and filthy yellow mud to turn 
entire lives into trinkets 
for the callow.  I need only
the smallest part of their 
blooded product to leave
the earth

and open the stars

Lovely. The last line is sublime, because understanding the structure of the atom was the first step in a series of steps that led to Hans Bethe's work.