Published by Associate Editor on . This item is listed in Issue 24, Issue 24 Featured Poet, Issue 24 Poetry, Poetry

A Different Kind of Motion by Roald Hoffmann

A Different Kind of Motion by Roald Hoffmann

Illustration by Sue Babcock

	 for Katelijne Vanduffel
	
The wolf-child creeps around the clearing
where children build a campfire. She hears
a new sound, laughter, cross talk. Upright
shapes jump blurred across the fire. But
they have dogs that smell her, so she can’t
get near. After they run off, she sniffs
the fruit skins, some colored paper they
left. She raises a paw, then tries to stand,
as she saw the children stand, but her rear
legs remain bent, she falls over and over
and over. She hitches away, in her crab-
like motion, fast as the rabbits she catches
and eats. From the edge of the forest
the wolf-child watches men hoe the fields.
They’ve begun to set traps for her. She
tries again to stand, her front legs
on a tree trunk, leg over leg up the bark,
rearing up so the sun coming through
the leaves hits her muddaubed belly. Her 
back legs hurt, like the day she tried to lope
after the wolves, before she came on hitching.
She falls away from the pain, with a grunt,
not the tinkling water sound of children
in her ears. In time, she learns to hobble
leaning on a stick, and the wolf-child comes
on stage with a different kind of motion.

 

Roald Hoffmann was born in 1937 in Złoczów, then Poland. He came to the US in 1949, and has long been at Cornell University in the USA, active as a theoretical chemist. In chemistry, he has taught generations how to think about molecular orbitals.

Hoffmann is also a writer, carving out his own land between poetry, philosophy, and science. He has published five books of non-fiction, written three produced plays, and six volumes of poetry, including two book length selections of his poems in Spanish and Russian translations.

Published by Associate Editor on . This item is listed in Issue 24, Issue 24 Featured Poet, Issue 24 Poetry, Poetry

Crossing the Mekong by Roald Hoffmann

Crossing the Mekong by Roald Hoffmann

Illustration by Sue Babcock

The sun touches the treetops. In,
among the middle branch leaves,
ruffed gibbon faces. They stretch,
lick fur dry. It’s time, to greet
neighbors with the morning’s old
songs, time to check the soft-spined
rambutan fruit. Climbing high
for the launch, spread out flat,
changing direction in midleap,
shaping out of air a vector
tunnel of openings and branches,
the yelping gibbons' arboreal swing.

Their children cling,
				ours crawl.
We invented the beauty parlor,
				but take out our own splinters.
				They groom each other.
Apes have dominant males
				who defend estate, sexual
				territory. We get married.
				Gibbons are almost like us.
And when the stranger comes,
				swinging in an out-
				of-season coat, armed,
				smelling of his feed, we
				just look, furtively, look.
				They scatter to howl away
				the green-brown sky.
If mother is taken far
				apes cower, babies cry.

When a man of the Hmong dies
the gibbons know. They come
from the highlands in the night,
stand guard, eat the offering.

The monkey king gently wraps
the man's soul in a white cloth
bears it off in phantom leaps
the stars’ tree limbs meeting
his confident long hand reach,
across the muddy river, back home.

 

Roald Hoffmann was born in 1937 in Złoczów, then Poland. He came to the US in 1949, and has long been at Cornell University in the USA, active as a theoretical chemist. In chemistry, he has taught generations how to think about molecular orbitals.

Hoffmann is also a writer, carving out his own land between poetry, philosophy, and science. He has published five books of non-fiction, written three produced plays, and six volumes of poetry, including two book length selections of his poems in Spanish and Russian translations.

Published by Associate Editor on . This item is listed in Issue 24, Issue 24 Featured Poet, Issue 24 Poetry, Poetry

Volition by Roald Hoffmann

Volition by Roald Hoffmann

Illustration by Sue Babcock

A gold coin centers this landscape.
It is drawn standing on edge,
so that we can see the ridges and a hint of the design,
which seems to be the Russian imperial eagle.
The coin is teetering,
and this is shown in comic book notation,
with some short curved lines.
The coin would fall
(and it is not clear to which side)
were it not for two dark arrows
contending
to push it over,
one from each side.
The arrows are each impelled by intricate machinery -
gears, cams, even engines and boilers.
This machinery is controlled
(we see two trailing wires)
by a man below
pushing buttons on a panel, and it is clear
that he directs both arrows.
At this point we notice that the floor around the engineer
is littered by loose letters in various fonts.
The composition is quite symmetrical:
to the left of the man is a fence, a big wave
about to break into it.
A dragon is partway over.
Some small figures are hurrying about
trying to unroll a hose against the dragon,
others are trying to pull out some bayonets
that have penetrated the fence.
Some of the figures gesture at the man at the control panel,
who should be giving them orders.
But he doesn't look at them,
not at the panel (though his fingers are on it). Instead
he looks to his right
at a sitting woman in a red and black dirndl.
She faces away,
painting what seems to be a landscape with two roads.

 

Roald Hoffmann was born in 1937 in Złoczów, then Poland. He came to the US in 1949, and has long been at Cornell University in the USA, active as a theoretical chemist. In chemistry, he has taught generations how to think about molecular orbitals.

Hoffmann is also a writer, carving out his own land between poetry, philosophy, and science. He has published five books of non-fiction, written three produced plays, and six volumes of poetry, including two book length selections of his poems in Spanish and Russian translations.