Fortnightly Poem 8.B (Karen’s)
My own poem for this fortnight was written after Classic FM’s reminiscences of The Argonauts for the 90th anniversary of the ABC. I thought it might appeal to some other ‘baby boomers’- even some science nerds!
Archimedes 40 (unpublished)
Canberra 1950s and every night at 5.00
while the sun set over the blue Brindabellas
and the first wood fire-sprites curled into the sky
I’d squat on our leather pouffe
huddled by the radio—
A grand affair, in a cabinet all to itself
with wooden doors – pale in the middle
dark bevelled edges. I’d half shut them—
my ‘cave’. All the better to enter the new world
of The Argonauts…
None of my friends were argonauts
They listened to ‘Hop Harrigan’ instead
on the commercial channel, (banned in our house)
constantly regaling me with Hop’s adventures
I countered, unconvinced myself at first
with my membership of a special club
A Gathering of Heroes, with our special names
from fifty mythical Greek oarsmen
who sailed the seas in vast boats –
Row Oarsmen row… Merry oarsmen row…
in search of the magic Golden Fleece.
The special name did it!
Soon my friends were jealous of Archimedes 40
the ‘club’, and the competitions— where your
name could be read out loud on the radio!
Imagine such a thing in these cynical times
with adulthood thrust so early upon us …
Instant entertainment for every taste
from the gutter to the stars, and everything between
But a radio ‘club’ for would be ‘argonauts’
sessions on nature and classical music, competitions
where the prizes were certificates with pictures
of a ‘golden fleece’…or your name being read out
on the radio --could never happen now…
(Come with a hop, a skip and a run. Come for the Session! Come for the fun!)
Now I search Mr. Google for history of my hero
Being Greek mythology, there are many lists :
‘The names of 25 known argonauts’…Archimedes is not there!
‘The list of ‘agreed upon’ argonauts ‘…not there
‘More agreed upon’ argonauts’…or there
Then ‘Men who might have been argonauts’…not there
Finally ‘some names mentioned as argonauts but
which made little sense’...not even there
Archimedes was no argonaut!
Even better, he was a real hero, rather
than a mythic one—an impressive one:
The greatest philosopher, physicist, engineer
in ancient history –mathematician, astronomer
Something in my distant memory
of high school physics speaks to me of bath-water?
A see a picture of an old guy with a curly beard
sitting in an overflowing bath saying Ah Ha!
Such a wonderful discovery!
They say he ran into the streets naked,
crying ‘Eureka’ –the *The Archimedes principle!
So I was a ‘principle‘ not an argonaut
triumph of brain over brawn
science over mythology, a bath not a boat
But both were intrepid water voyages!