English mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) contemplates the force of gravity, as the famous story goes, on seeing an apple fall in his orchard, circa 1665. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
I learnt by accident,
That a bath tub hides many evils
In water. The first is, the Archimedes
Principle, that displaces water
As you settle on the floor of the
bathtub. The next is how small
An average bathtub is, for a 6’4” man.
Still what I learnt mostly that day was, epiphanies
Are bigger than an education. I learnt that Archimedes
Was epiphany-charged that day
In Syracuse, like I was this day
Learning that, displacement is a common event in
Hydro-mechanics, and more so,
I learnt that we learn something new
Everyday, like in my honeymoon,
When I learnt that missionary was not divine praying.
It was just a sport powered by
One of Newton’s laws, which too was an epiphany
Charged by a falling red apple.
Archimedes, Newton and Me – two greats and one mortal,
Making the bulbs inside the brain lit,
With what comes always unannounced
Through the veil of mystery
That learning moment, which collapses
Walls of ignorance and opens
A chest filled with cosmic light.
Dr Dilantha Gunawardana graduated from the University of Melbourne, as a molecular biologist, and moonlights as a poet. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Botany, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Dilantha lives in a chimeric universe of science and poetry. Dilantha’s poems have been accepted for publication /published in HeartWood Literary Magazine, Canary Literary Magazine, Boston Accent, Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry, Zingara Poetry Review, The Wagon and Ravens Perch, among others. Dilantha too has two anthologies of poetry, 'Kite Dreams' (2016) and 'Driftwood' (2017), both brought to the readership by Sarasavi Publishers, and is working on his third poetry collection (The Many Constellations of Home). Dilantha’s pet areas of teaching and research, include, Nitrogen Fixation, RNA biology, Phytoremediation, Agricultural Biology, and Bioethics & Biosafety. Dilantha blogs at – https://meandererworld.wordpress.com/ -, where he has nearly 2000 poems.
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