poem “Protactinium”, a Periodic Table poem By Chicago Poet Janet Kuypers

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Protactinium
Janet Kuypers
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#91, Pa)
7/1/14
Wanted to talk about P A,
element ninety one,
but gotta keep this brief,
because the first people
who discovered an isotope
of element ninety one
found it had had an
insanely short half life,
so they wanted
to name it “brevium”.
Than again,
after a German scientist
found another isotope
with a much longer
half life,
they figured that maybe
they’d try “protoactinium”,
because this element
is the progenitor of element 89,
Actinium, because
when element ninety one decays
and loses and alpha particle,
Actinium (element 89) is created.
But proto-actinium?
That still sounds
a little long,
maybe we can remember
that brevity
of the one isotope’s
short half life
and call it
Protactinium
instead.
But really,
this stuff’s radioactive
and highly toxic,
and no one has found
a single use for this element
besides maybe scientific research.
But right now they’ve discovered
when measuring the ratios
of Protactinium and Thorium isotopes
in ocean sediments, they can
reconstruct the movements
of bodies of North Atlantic water
during the melting of the last ice age.
Kind of cool.
But an ice age can take
millions of years.
Hardly brief,
like the first isotope
discovered of Protactinium.
But who knows,
maybe if Protactinium
is only good to us humans
for scientific research,
maybe we will
start to learn some cool stuff
about Earth’s past —
and maybe Earth’s future —
thanks to a brief little element
we otherwise have no use for...

(from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series)
also see this poem at Artvilla

Watch YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading this Periodic Table poem Protactinium in her this Poetry is Money feature, live in Chicago 7/7/14 at “Waiting 4 the Bus” (C)

Watch YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading this Periodic Table poem Protactinium in her this Poetry is Money feature, live in Chicago 7/7/14 at “Waiting 4 the Bus” (S)

Watch YouTube video
of poems read from Janet Kuypers’ brand new Periodic Table of Poetry series back and forth with poems by Bob Rashkow in this Poetry is Money, live in Chicago 7/7/14 at “Waiting 4 the Bus” (C)

Watch YouTube video
of poems read from Janet Kuypers’ brand new Periodic Table of Poetry series back and forth with poems by Bob Rashkow in this Poetry is Money, live in Chicago 7/7/14 at “Waiting 4 the Bus” (S)

Watch YouTube video
of poems read from Janet Kuypers’ cropped Periodic Table of Poetry series back and forth with poems by Bob Rashkow in this Poetry is Money, live in Chicago 7/7/14 at “Waiting 4 the Bus” (S)

Download this poem in the free PDF file
this Poetry is Money chapbook,
w/ Periodic Table of Poetry poems.

Protactinium

my hand to an anim of jkchair