Tag: writing

“With notes, marginalia, daydreaming—
Scrap paper as palette now seeming.  
The lim’rick, non-thwartive:
A format supportive
In April’s routine, still-esteeming.”  

The 13 April 2025 limerick celebrated the NaPoWriMo writing routine itself, and it seems a fitting place to pause these posts at the end of the Autumn 2025 semester.  

“With notes, marginalia, daydreaming— /
Scrap paper as palette now seeming.”  

The first two lines here commemorate the fact that NaPoWriMo has become steadily more familiar, as an academic-year tradition.  

Nearing April each year, I aim for a starting set of four or five poems; this is part of why I repeat some themes most years.  (At my preparatory extreme, in 2019, I made sure to have a set of thirty limericks written before I began, although what I ended up posting in that first go-round included some more spontaneous contributions.  This was admittedly excessive!)  

In more recent years, I’ve trusted myself to have “enough” inspiration to get through most of April in an ad hoc manner.  I thus often find myself jotting down rhymes in the margins of class prep notes or on scrap paper, throughout the month. 

“The lim’rick, non-thwartive: /
A format supportive /
In April’s routine, still-esteeming.”      

In the years when I have reconsidered trying NaPoWriMo, knowing I was headed into a hectic spring, I have found intriguing rhymes that lend themselves to the AABBA structure within the day.  The limerick form is “supportive” and “non-thwartive”; it provides creative adrenaline, allowing me to find interesting inspirations when I’d otherwise feel like I’m running on fumes.  

(A sidenote that hadn’t come to mind previously: I suppose that having April 2020 as my second NaPoWriMo attempt will forever cause subsequent “hectic” Aprils to pale in comparison, realistically.) 

*** 

And with that, I’ve reached the end of my scheduled Autumn 2025 posts and the end of autumn classes.  I may post occasionally over winter break here; if not, I will resume the NaPoWriMo2025 translations when we all reach 2026. 

Creative, complex education, /
Socratic in STEM information /
With goals pedagogic  /
Through mode dialogic: /
The art of a chem conversation.  

This (non-NaPoWriMo) poem is inspired by a biography I encountered earlier this autumn: that of Jane Haldimand Marcet (1769-1858), who wrote a landmark chemistry textbook, Conversations on Chemistry.  First published in the early 1800s, the book was used throughout the century and inspired several generations of aspiring scientists.    

“Creative, complex education, / 
Socratic in STEM information…”

Jane Marcet’s 1806 work was entitled Conversations on Chemistry: In Which The Elements of That Science Are Familiarly Explained and Illustrated by Experiments.  

In the book, a teacher named Mrs. Bryant works through several complex chemistry concepts with her two students, Emily and Caroline.  Due to the question-and-answer format (“Socratic in STEM information”), the presentation is quite readable, even centuries on.  

I enjoyed this frank and clarifying acknowledgement of the way changing definitions can frustrate students; here, Caroline is first thinking of “elements” as only the classical four:  

CAROLINE: “Yes; I know that all bodies are composed of fire, air, earth, and water; I learnt that many years ago.”  

MRS. B.  “But you must now endeavour to forget it. I have already informed you what a great change chemistry has undergone since it has become a regular science. Within these thirty years especially, it has experienced an entire revolution, and it is now proved, that neither fire, air, earth, nor water, can be called elementary bodies. For an elementary body is one that has never been decomposed, that is to say, separated into other substances; and fire, air, earth, and water, are all of them susceptible of decomposition.”  

Quote from Jane Marcet’s Conversations on Chemistry

While this book was published a few decades before Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table (in 1869), the current understanding of “element,” as a substance that cannot be broken down into simpler substances, is evident in Mrs. Bryant’s discussion.

“With goals pedagogic /
Through mode dialogic…”

Marcet’s goal in writing her text was that it would teach chemistry to a wider audience, including female students and all students who would not have had access to formal education at the time (where traditional lectures would be the favored format).   

She was successful.  Her use of accessible language and familiar phenomena to describe science concepts was a ground-breaking step in science education.  Her chemistry textbook reached wide audiences and received multiple reprintings (although she was not credited as the author for the first several editions).  It was translated into several languages.  Seven years after Marcet’s death, the first lab-based science course taught to women in the United States of America (in 1865 in Boston) would use her book in its curriculum.                   

“The art of a chem conversation.”  

Marcet anticipated several trends in terms of today’s work in chemical education.  Current science communication efforts often build on exchanges wherein challenging points can be clarified through conversations (such as a co-hosted podcast or a social media video).  The idea of “flipping the classroom” aims to allow more interactive science learning, beyond lecture alone.    

***

Two notable asides, here:

First, although I had not heard of Marcet herself until this autumn, her life and work intersected with those of two names I knew quite well already.  Marcet was inspired to write her book after observing Sir Humphry Davy’s famous demonstrations and realizing that discussions afterwards were what helped her truly understand the underlying chemistry concepts.  Years later, Michael Faraday would begin his scientific career as one of Davy’s assistants at the Royal Institution, then ultimately contribute huge insights to the fields of chemistry, physics, and science education on his own.  Faraday had initially discovered his interest in electricity while working as an apprentice to a bookbinder… because one of the books that came into the shop happened to be Marcet’s text!   

Second, I found it fascinating that one of Marcet’s friends was Mary Somerville, likewise famous for writing a 19th-century text that engaged with its scientific subject matter in a creative way, building on accessible examples (On the Connection of the Physical Sciences).  Several clarifying illustrations and insights can be imagined in their conversations, as well. 

Organic chem mem’ries retrievable;
Exam prep for STEM goals achievable:
Two varied texts, choosing
In weekend’s perusing;
Reflections on texts… inconceivable!  

This is a non-NaPoWriMo poem that has been on my mind as we near the autumn term’s final exams, based on my recollection of studying for my own exams many years ago.  I’ll give this a bit more flexibility with word count, given the scope of time covered.   

Organic chem mem’ries retrievable; /
Exam prep for STEM goals achievable: /
Two varied texts, choosing…

I found Organic Chemistry to be a challenging-yet-rewarding subject, which was an appealing combination for me as a student.  I would often spend a long stretch of a given weekend day in a study room at the library with my organic textbook and solutions manual, practicing as many problems as I could.  To provide a break, I often would grab a non-textbook novel from the library’s stacks, as well.  

In weekend’s perusing…

One weekend, the book I chose was William Goldman‘s The Princess Bride; I had seen the classic movie growing up, and it had been a great favorite of mine for many years.  However, I had not yet read the novel, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was likewise wonderful.  

I had so much fun reading through Goldman’s central conceit of an “abridged version” of a wordy historical text by original (fictional!) Florinese author S. Morgenstern.  Goldman’s asides throughout the book frame his creative narrative as one that his Florinese-fluent father originally created by skipping over the boring parts in “Morgenstern’s text” as he read aloud to Goldman, and that Goldman then committed to written text a generation later.  

This opened up a new type of writing for me, which I enjoyed as I took (increasingly common) breaks from studying electrophilic aromatic substitution in my chem books.  I had learned about metafiction in an excellent Literary Studies course the previous autumn, but it was a different type of discovery to find such a book on my own.  

Reflections on texts… inconceivable!  

At that moment, it felt like I was shifting between two extremely contrasting texts, and that of course is not incorrect.  A STEM textbook and a fiction classic are from decidedly different genres.  

When remembering it this autumn, though, I found it also intriguing to think of the similarities between the two books.  Any science book is itself also somewhat of an abridgement (as well as a bit of a speedometer): reflecting intentional choices from the author at the exact time of its writing, as well as much cut material from a complex history.  

In particular, Goldman has a wonderful aside at one point about how he is going to sum up one densely satirical Morgenstern-penned chapter with his father’s simple summary, which is much more germane to the narrative flow: “What with one thing and another, three years passed.”  It’s a phrase that has come to mind multiple times when I’ve provided a sweeping overview of some scientific theory, leaping among decades and centuries (excising FAR more than three years at a time!), in the space of a PowerPoint slide.  

“Inconceivable” is both an acknowledgment that I could not realistically have seen this similarity in the moment, many years ago, and (more directly) an homage to villain Vizzini’s famously oft-repeated characterization of unexpected plot developments in The Princess Bride’s book and movie.  

*** 

To add a few more words past the poem translation itself, looking into one of those long-persistent vocabulary questions for me: the “meta” of electrophilic aromatic substitution reflects a specific pattern of how functional groups are attached to a cyclic ring.  However, the “meta” of metafiction reflects a genre that is writing intentionally about writing, similar to how metacognition is thinking intentionally about thinking.  “Meta” in a chemistry context has always seemed an outlier.    

I can imagine a hand-waving hypothesis as to how the chem meaning gets there now, as “meta” itself comes from the Greek for “following.” “Meta-directing” is a category generally presented in a secondary way, in Organic Chemistry: it typically comes up as a contrast to a previously-introduced category called “ortho/para-directing.” I don’t think straining for such a connection would’ve helped me much as a student, though.  Moreover, following up after a more targeted search (having more of a sense now of where to look, many years later) I am not surprised to see that experts suspect a more retroactive and perhaps-arbitrary assignment of terms.  

However, electrophilic aromatic substitution (with its focus on ortho, meta, and para pathways) was indeed the organic mechanism I was studying during that long-past winter weekend, a fact which is itself motivation enough to use this post title. 

In pages of sci-fi iconic,
Find parody central-carbonic 
And humor cerebral,
As shape tetrahedral 
Prompts molecule deemed endochronic.  

I have written before here about the welcome surprise of renowned sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov’s essays, contextualizing many interesting scientific history moments and concepts for general audiences and published in popular magazines.  This is a non-NaPoWriMo poem based on one such piece, in which Asimov satirized scientific writing with a journal article about an imaginary molecule deemed thiotimoline. 

“In pages of sci-fi iconic, /
Find parody central-carbonic /
And humor cerebral…”

Asimov first celebrated thiotimoline in an extensive parody borrowing the structure of a journal article: “The Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline.”  I found a reprint in the essay collection Only a Trillion earlier this autumn.  

Thiotimoline is an organic molecule (“central-carbonic”) exhibiting unusual properties: namely, the ability to time-travel.  It was apparently inspired by Asimov’s work with the highly-water-soluble compound catechol in graduate school.  (Catechol dissolves extremely quickly in water due to its polar structure; this behavior spurred the imaginative possibility of something dissolving before even reaching the water.)        

“As shape tetrahedral /
Prompts molecule deemed endochronic.”

A challenge of organic chemistry is representing three-dimensional molecules via two-dimensional media.  The convention we use today is called “dash-wedge” notation.  In a carbon atom’s tetrahedral geometry, two bonds are drawn in the plane of the page. A solid triangle (a wedge) is read as a bond coming out of the page towards the viewer; a dashed triangle is read as a bond going back behind the page, away from the viewer.  Asimov cites a slightly different drawing convention, but the same theme: a three-dimensional “shape tetrahedral” is a key idea for chemists to communicate via a two-dimensional page.  

Asimov’s essay proposes that instead of a molecule’s existing in three dimensions, it instead exists in four: it can time-travel!  Applying the three-dimensional drawing convention to the fourth dimension means the molecule exists in the past and future, along with the present: it is both behind and ahead of the viewer, in the fourth dimension of time.  Asimov characterizes thiotimoline as “endochronic” (a reasonable descriptor for “traveling into time,” given other chemistry terms). 

***   

I also enjoyed reading about Asimov’s writing process with this essay.  He was already an established sci-fi writer while in graduate school.  As he neared the dissertation process, he recognized that popular writing and academic writing employ quite different styles, and this piece was the result of his shifting back towards the strict writing style of a scientific article. 

I hope to revisit the saga of thiotimoline in the future (which seems appropriate).  This essay has great potential for teaching, as a way to contextualize audience awareness, writing conventions, and the challenges of disciplinary specializations.  The last of these is even more pronounced now than during the late 1940s, when the piece was written.  

It likewise might be fascinating to consider the “experimental evidence” that Asimov wrote about as a reflection of that point in chemistry’s disciplinary history: he primarily satirized the writing around preparing and purifying an experimental target and exploring its physical properties, such as solubility.  I wonder if he ever would have been interested in adding in fictional instrumental analyses in a follow-up, knowing how prominent such techniques would become in the next few decades.  Asimov comments generally on the immense number of functional groups on thiotimoline; it’s fun to imagine how such a structure could be supported via different types of spectroscopy.    

However, I am glad to at least get a few lines about this written in the present moment.  Moreover, while I’m surprised I haven’t used this post title before, it’s a fitting one for today.  

“One metaphor most vivid for poetic inspiration: /
The spark of creativity in supersaturation. /  
A sudden-seen assembly: solute’s newly found formation /
Yields crystallizing product from excessive concentration.”

The 10 April 2025 Bluesky poem built on a marvelous quote from renowned author Margaret Atwood in The Paris Review in 1990, as she commented on her creative process: “The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words.  The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation.”  

“One metaphor most vivid for poetic inspiration: /
The spark of creativity in supersaturation..”  

Atwood alludes in her quote to a reliably fun chemistry demonstration.  A solution consists of a solute (what’s present in lesser quantity; typically a solid) in a solvent (what’s present in greater quantity; typically a liquid).  An aqueous solution is something dissolved in water.  

When a solution is supersaturated, more solute has been dissolved in the solvent that would be expected from the solution’s equilibrium behavior.  (This can be achieved by manipulating temperature: solutes are typically more soluble at higher temperatures, so if you prepare a heated solution and then take care as you cool it down, you can generate a supersaturated solution.)  However the solution is prepared, it then only takes a small disturbance to seed a sudden, dramatic crystallization process.  

In that last link’s video, the author uses a small crystal, but as Atwood notes, a thread can accomplish the same thing.     

“A sudden-seen assembly: solute’s newly found formation /
Yields crystallizing product from excessive concentration.”

The use of “formation” here is slightly imprecise, as the solute is always there; it’s just in solution initially.  The “sudden-seen assembly” of the crystallization process is a great metaphor for a moment of inspiration.  When I encountered Atwood’s quote, I was particularly reminded of Graham Wallas’s model of creative cognition, where illumination follows as an abrupt moment, after the longer steps of preparation and incubation.   

I liked “excessive concentration” as a closing phrase here, both in terms of how a chemist would quantitatively describe their supersaturated solution in a lab setting and how a poet would qualitatively describe the writing process necessary to achieve their draft. 

“An avian, brass-themed musician;
A writer of web compositions.  
Indelible stories 
Form mind’s lab’ratories, 
Imaginative in ambition.”  

The 9 April 2025 limerick fell during National Library Week and commemorated two books by author E. B. White: Charlotte’s Web and Trumpet of the Swan.    

“An avian, brass-themed musician; /
A writer of web compositions…”  

The first line here alludes to Louis the swan, the protagonist of Trumpet of the Swan; the second alludes to Charlotte the spider, whose creative writing saves the life of Wilbur the pig in Charlotte’s Web. 

I read both these books often in elementary school, along with Stuart Little, a third book by the same author, E.B. White. I have a memory of all three arriving as a boxed set, perhaps via a Scholastic book order, many years ago.    

“Indelible stories /
Form mind’s lab’ratories, /
Imaginative in ambition.” 

The book titles for Louis and Charlotte’s stories center each character’s artistic medium.  Louis uses a brass trumpet to communicate throughout his life, and his path as a musician takes him to several memorable locations across America.  Charlotte uses her web to weave words celebrating her friend Wilbur, ultimately bringing him enough attention that he will live a long life on his owner’s farm.  In contrast to Louis, Charlotte travels only once after her introduction, as she accompanies Wilbur to the county fair… and I will curtail the summary right there!  

The plot points and dialogue of these books are remarkably familiar (indeed, “indelible”) at this point.  Along with Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, they are probably the books I’ve read most often through my lifetime, and I’m sure that my own thought processes (“mind’s lab’ratories”) have immensely benefited from their compelling narratives. 

The obvious necessity of creative work throughout these narratives is something I’ve found moving throughout my own life, as I aim to balance my job in STEM with interests in writing and other artistic fields (“imaginative in ambition”).     

“One year since a 3 p.m. midnight;
An opportune pause in the sunlight;
A brief interaction 
With solar subtraction;
Eclipsing occasion in hindsight.”  

The 8 April 2025 limerick noted the one-year anniversary of the total solar eclipse in April 2024, for which much of Ohio was in the path of totality.    

“One year since a 3 p.m. midnight; /
An opportune pause in the sunlight…”

I’ve already written at length about the 8 April 2024 eclipse in a few places, but it was a truly memorable day.  As anniversaries often do, 8 April 2025 arrived remarkably quickly.    

“A brief interaction /
With solar subtraction; /
Eclipsing occasion in hindsight.” 

April 2024 was a good chance to celebrate eclipses in both poetry and science; April 2025 provided a chance to reflect on the occasion.

*** 

The poem translation here is straightforward.  However, I had further written back in 2024 about how the occasion of the eclipse itself reminded me indirectly of the structure of the interlocking rubaiyat, and that essay might benefit from revisiting as well.  

Part of the publicity leading up to a major astronomical event involves the long-term data on which types of eclipses will follow and where, long into the future; I thus commented that “a day like Monday invites us to think deliberately across decades.”  That sense of sending a signal flare into the future had reminded me of the rubaiyat, where the rhyme scheme of the first stanza (AABA) inspires the rhyme scheme of the second (BBCB), and so on.  

I often think of this intriguing poetic form when I am teaching the history of the periodic table, as the periodicity of the elements means that there are patterns of repeated elemental behaviors with every new row.  It likewise comes to mind in my writing routine here– the limericks written in one April’s NaPoWriMo inspire the topics for the next academic year’s set of essays.           

The rubaiyat’s self-perpetuating structure invites the question: how does the poet know when and where to stop?  Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is a beautiful example of the form.  In the part of the poem I know best, he famously resolves the rubaiyat with four closing lines that all rhyme: “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, / But I have promises to keep, / And miles to go before I sleep / And miles to go before I sleep.”  Bringing the rhyme scheme full circle in the same stanza seems a fitting close.  (Interestingly, while few details overlap between a snowy evening and a spring day, I had not remembered before looking back at the link that Frost’s poem is specifically set on “[t]he darkest evening of the year.” That yielded a further-intriguing connection to the darkest moment that an April afternoon would ever see!)  

Likewise, if this is the last time I’ll formally write about the 2024 eclipse in this space, it seems appropriate that my writing has gone in a few circles in celebrating the occasion, between the April 2024 and 2025 poems and the October 2024 and 2025 posts.  

Coccinella bipunctata’s 
Journey home: linguistic data.  
Metric feet in names, abounding; 
Trochees’ constant rhythm, sounding.  
Lunar leap from one bos taurus;
Strigidae as wisdom’s chorus;
Ovis aries, fleece-donating:
Latin names and verse conflating.  

This is a non-NaPoWriMo poem that came to mind this autumn, rather than last April. 

It takes its inspiration from a wonderful quote from Dr. Percy Julian, an organic chemist who spoke candidly about the challenges of jargon within the field, citing another scientist, Sir J. B. S. Haldane:

“I don’t want to frighten those of you who are not familiar with organic chemistry. I should have said in the beginning that one hardly expects an organic chemist to be able to speak without his gobbledygook in his language. As a matter of fact, one hardly expects a scientist to speak without that, and therefore scientists are usually and traditionally poor speakers, I warn you… The late Sir J. B. S. Haldane, the great biologist, put it rather aptly when he said that our language doesn’t lend itself to poetry. ‘Ladybird, ladybird fly away home’ becomes impossible when you must call the ladybird Coccinella bipunctata.”   

Dr. Percy Julian, quoted in “Forgotten Genius,” NOVA

The quote here refers to the scientific use of binomial nomenclature as a particularly specific type of jargon.  

Coccinella bipunctata’s 
Journey home: linguistic data.  

Every time I’ve heard this fantastic quote, I’ve appreciated it– while also still hearing a rhythm inherent in the Latin name that Dr. Julian cites!  In drafting this poem, I reclassified the ladybird’s flight as “linguistic data.”

Metric feet in names, abounding; 
Trochees’ constant rhythm, sounding.  

The next two lines highlight the metric foot in Coccinella bipunctata, which is the trochee, a two-syllable foot where the accent is on the first syllable (e.g., LADder, TIger).  The trochee is the mirror image of the iamb, a two-syllable foot where the accent is on the second syllable (e.g., exIST, aMUSE, deLIGHT).  

As a sidenote, a favorite discovery since beginning this website has been Isaac Asimov’s “You, Too, Can Speak Gaelic,” in which he comments on the “drumming dactylic feet” of chemical nomenclature (e.g., AL-de-hyde).  It’s interesting to think about whether these metric trends are pronounced overall, in the different naming systems.       

Lunar leap from one bos taurus;
Strigidae as wisdom’s chorus;
Ovis aries, fleece-donating…

The next few lines cite celebrated animals from various verses, in terms of their Latin names.  Respectively, these are: the cow that jumped over the moon; “wise old owls” dwelling in their tree (using the family name here to suit the rhyme scheme!); and sheep of various hues and homes, all from famous nursery rhymes.      

Latin names and verse conflating.  

One of my main themes here is that jargon can be intimidating, but it also carries with it one same benefit that everyday words do: it can be used in rhymes that are fun to read.  This poem is a direct acknowledgement of my ongoing goal in that regard. 

“A fluttering, dancing occasion /
‘Twixt floral and bay wave equations? /
The hue of the daffodil: / 
Absorption of xanthophyll! /  
Chem words, worth poetic persuasion.”    

The 7 April 2025 Bluesky limerick was posted in honor of poet William Wordsworth’s birthday; he lived from 1770-1850, and along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he was one of the most famous Romantic poets.  The limerick took significant poetic license in describing some science-art overlaps evoked by the images in one of Wordsworth’s most famous poems, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud.” 

(I doubt that such sentiment would’ve been particularly beloved in that era, but then again, Wordsworth was part of the interdisciplinary science-poetry efforts with contemporaries Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Sir Humphry Davy that I’ve greatly enjoyed learning about and have written about before, on this site!)   

“A fluttering, dancing occasion /
‘Twixt floral and bay wave equations?” 

“I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud” recounts Wordsworth’s famous sight of “a crowd, / A host, of golden daffodils…/ Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.”  The poet memorably describes the “sprightly dance” as these flowers bob in the wind beside nearby water, and he observes, likewise vividly, that the sun-dappled bay nearby cannot compete: “The waves beside them danced; but they / Out-did the sparkling waves in glee.”    

This particular limerick was meant as a birthday homage to Wordsworth.  Wave equations generate graphs that represent wave behavior.  In alluding to some of the way waves come up in a scientific environment, the poem imagines the mathematical descriptions of these famous poetic motions– a.k.a., “floral and bay wave equations.”     

“The hue of the daffodil: / 
Absorption of xanthophyll!” 

Even more clinical-sounding, I fear, is the link in lines 3-4 between the color of the daffodil and its science-themed justification.   

Xanthophyll, a compound found in the flower, absorbs blue light.  Because the blue light is absorbed, the complementary color to blue is what we see when looking at the daffodil (in other words, we see the color that is NOT absorbed by the xanthophyll in the flower).  The “hue of the daffodil,” as we see it, is thus yellow!  

“Chem words, worth poetic persuasion.”  

It was the daffodil/xanthophyll near-rhyme that initially made me seek the limerick potential here. It was a fun challenge to echo some of the same themes from this famous verse with some poetic potential inherent in related chemistry vocabulary.  (The Line 5 pun also gave rise to the post title, with the “words’ worth” explored in multiple ways.)

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.