January 2002 | back-issues, Michael W. Giberson
[i]”…but man he made to serve him, wittily, in the tangle of His mind.”
Robert Bolt, A Man for all Seasons [/i]
There is scientific evidence that objects on the mesoscopic scale (meaning sizes ranging from a few nanometers to a tenth of a micron) tend to be self-organizing when arranged in groups of two to three orders of magnitude. Inanimate particles begin to organize themselves into patterns that seem to respond to their surroundings in ways similar to life forms.
The driving force behind this tendency toward self-organization appears to be a combination of phenomena that scientists term “frustration” and “funneling.”
Frustration arises when systems contain components that compete against each other in two or more different ways, often with simultaneous attraction and repulsion. Such competition can force aggregates of matter into patterns that develop in unstable ways, and which, under the right conditions, suddenly materialize into a stable, low-energy state with new properties. The random competing processes of the frustration principle forces the system into the lowest energy state, much like a funnel directs water downward through its spout, which accounts for the term “funneling.”
An example of self-organizing, multiple-competing systems is a phospholipid cluster, which, in water solution, arranges itself into two layers, with the water soluble tails directed outward and the fat soluble heads directed inward. We call these clusters detergents.
Another example is an experiment for the reader to try. Dump a bunch of #7-1/2 or #8 steel bird shot in a single layer in a petri dish and place the dish on a rotating magnetic stirrer. Record what happens, then report the results on this forum.
You may be asking yourself what in the world does all this have to do with a literary web site.
It turns out that it may be possible to design an entirely artificial system that exhibits the adaptive behavior of living things. In fact, we may have already done so! The organizing principles that give matter emergent properties may not be limited to physical matter. They may apply to any complex and random system that emulates the mesoscopic environment.
The most enormously complex, most random, richest – and fastest growing – environment ever devised by man is right in front of us – the Web.
We can only conclude what we already know: Burning Word is coming alive!
November 2001 | back-issues, poetry
[b]A Soft Whisper[/b]
Leaves listless in the grayed snow
Gravel peeking from snow clouds
Brown brittle stalks steel themselves
against the October onslaught.
Something green and growing
Huddles beneath the shifting snow
Curling into itself braced
Bent and bowed but resilient.
Cold winds worry the withered ones
Who fold fallen to shelter the unseen green
Curve in against it
Like a mother protecting a child.
Layer upon layer it lusts
For fine and fragile things
Tucked against the terror
The trauma and the tremble.
Winter winnows out
The weak and wraithlike
Misses the potent possibilities
Of rage balled like a fist.
It survives the shattering
In spite of the night
That caves in on the white
Thinking it has won.
On a still and silent night
A soft whisper can be heard,
“I shall rise and roust
come Spring and soft sun.
“I shall unfurl,
new and necessary
green and growing
no matter the season’s sins.”
[b]Towers have a history[/b]
Towers have a history
Of falling down
Their ragged rumble
Epitomizes my vulnerability.
Slumped and draped
Spiked into a macabre pose
Lines across the moonlit night
Dog’s feed upon the bare bones
Of our peaceful fantasy.
The steely breath
Breathed through the streets
found it’s way here
smothered my calm interlude
froze me to the bones.
The big lie exploded
Shattered limbs and values
A twin set of carcasses
Gave truth to my mother’s fears.
A notion in a moment
That we are nothing
But shifting sands of history
No monuments can replace.
Towers have a history
Of falling down
Their ragged rumble
Epitomizes my vulnerability.
[b]The Teacher[/b]
“My girl,” she rumbled
Pushed the hide scraper
Against the meat,
Cut me to the bone.
“Get rid of extra stuff,”
she flicked at sand flies
pelting like moths to a flame.
“Holah, the army gathers,”
like men at the bar
after last call and you
send off your scent.”
“My girl,” she said, sideways,
set aside her filleting knife
after carving out the choice pieces.
“These you keep,” she smiled
patted the thin pink meat.
“Throw
the guts and gore away.”
The bucket slapped
When receiving the bounty.
“My girl,” she said, huffing,
“At the top of this hill
berries bunch in clusters,
hidden from the hunt
and hunters.” I stalked
her shadow as we climbed.
“Aiyee,” she exclaimed,
eying the bannock on the griddle.
“This is women’s work,
worrying this place for stuff.”
“They hang together, them.
No need for hanging there
Alone and aggrieved.
Go find someone to teach.”
by Carol Desjarlais
([email]ibntv [at] telusplanet [dot] ca[/email])
November 2001 | back-issues, Kelley Jean White, poetry
[b]Farmall[/b]
I am pleased to have Arthur sit
on my lawn for the Old Home Day parade.
He and Millie were good friends to my parents.
I know he and Peter feel quite alone
now that she is gone.
I know it has been a difficult year for Peter,
what with the surgery on his hips and the brief
failed marriage, but they have the church people
to help and they know everyone.
Arthur is one of the last people to have cows in town.
I love to see the tin roof on his barn reflect
the sunset off the mountain.
Jenny did a good job too.
She got two pictures of Peter driving the tractor.
One close up where he looks strong and wiry,
not at all sickly or limited, and one where
he waves, and his hand is the hand of a leader,
announcing the ripe corn and haystacks
on the flatbed truck float.
The tractor itself looks magnificent. Funny
I didn’t notice it in the parade. The flag waving
in front of the high grill, the majestic wheels.
It’s been months now since August.
I could just mail the pictures up,
but I think I’ll wait and take them by at Christmas,
bring my mother and the children.
It’s right on the way to the good Christmas tree fields.
I’d be nice to see the animals in the snow.
[b]Fish Perfume[/b]
trout new out of the water smell
power and cold and heavy moss dark
I have put two drops from the bottle
behind my ears, white shoulders, quiet
true my hands trailing the nets gravid
with dying and dulling eye stare
I want this boy to remember me in
dusklight when we row our fathers’
boat home pale before the rising moon
[b]The Sweetest Water in the World[/b]
came from a pump to a wooden trough
and a simple dipper just below the fire
tower on Belknap Mountain. It was a hike
the kids could make with dads after dinner
on a summer’s evening, a rush up the red
trail and those who needed, or cared, to go
slow could take the kinder gentler meandering
green. Everyone ran down the red. By spring
it was a rock river fed by that same sweet
well, that same snow deep locked in rock
and root and thick rich moss kept safe to cool
our child hot necks and cheeks before
the last climb, the knock on the floor
of the watcher’s keep–glass lifted still higher
than the mountain rock’s wind cleared view.
by Kelley White
([email]kelleywhitemd [at] yahoo [dot] com[/email])
