by Karen Warinsky
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| Scientists studying fusion energy at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California announced on Tuesday that they had crossed a long-awaited milestone in reproducing the power of the sun in a laboratory. That sparked public excitement as scientists have for decades talked about how fusion, the nuclear reaction that makes stars shine, could provide a future source of bountiful energy. The result announced on Tuesday is the first fusion reaction in a laboratory setting that actually produced more energy than it took to start the reaction. —The New York Times, December 13, 2022. GIF via The Hustle. |
A wave went round the world this week,
congratulations for tapping in to star power,
but others did it first,
blending us into something new,
their gravitational pull undeniable
as we crashed into orbits without consent
no way to resist such talent and charm,
and we were changed,
the way the sun’s gravity compresses hydrogen atoms,
fuses them into helium
the complete transformation
a burst of irrepressible energy;
we became light!
Ah, who can forget their first love?
Karen Warinsky has published in various anthologies and literary magazines including the 2019 Mizmor Anthology. She is the author of Gold in Autumn (2020), Sunrise Ruby (2022), and is a previous finalist in the Montreal International Poetry Contest. She loves to kayak and organize poetry readings.