A science-art phrase diagnostic
Will center a compound base-caustic;
Attention un-wavers
On limelight’s behavior,
As trips the light koniaphostic.
It is once again the “fresco stretch” of my autumn semester, which always lends itself to interesting metaphors and vocabulary. In preparing notes this time around, I intentionally delved deeper into a fascinating tangent I learned about last year, with the similarly science-art-themed concept of the limelight: the light caused by the heating of calcium oxide, or quicklime, to temperatures at which the material becomes incandescent. This is a non-NaPoWriMo limerick, but I’ll still aim to use my typical word count, to better distill my thinking.
A science-art phrase diagnostic /
Will center a compound base-caustic…
The first two lines here acknowledge that the same compound (quicklime, or calcium oxide, or CaO) plays a crucial role both in fresco art and “in the limelight” of a theater production.
With frescoes, calcium oxide is formed from calcination of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Calcium oxide then is mixed with water to form calcium hydroxide [Ca(OH)2], or lime plaster, which will constitute the actual fresco surface. Calcium oxide is a basic compound (pH > 7), and one of the primary characteristics of bases is that they are caustic.
Attention un-wavers /
On limelight’s behavior…
When heated to high temperatures, calcium oxide incandesces (glows) with an intensely white light. This video provides an outstanding overview and demonstration.
The resulting light is called the limelight because of its dependence on a calcium-containing compound. Limelight was used historically in theaters to spotlight the star of the show; limelight behavior is more consistent and brighter than that of gas lighting (typically using hydrocarbon fuels, which create more soot and have other drawbacks).
Limelight would presumably command “un-waver[ing]” attention compared to other sources.
As trips the light koniaphostic.
Discovering the word “koniaphostic” had prompted this poem for me this autumn, given its excellent metric fit within the limerick form! The term was used in 1836 to describe limelight; its etymology seems to track towards the Greek for powder (konis) and light (phos).
The fifth line is primarily an homage to John Milton’s “trip the light fantastic,” itself a poetic description of a performance. Here, though, I intended the final line to animate the beam itself, as “the light koniaphostic” travels toward the stage.
Chemphasis 