Scale
Scale
The greatest thing about this world is scale:
Scale is the height of the Himalayan Mountains
The depth of the Pacific trench
The detail in a moth’s wings
The teeth in a leaf’s margin –
As an engineer and scientist
I can build with scale:
Look into the blackness of space
Calculate light years between planets
Fly over continents and measure countries
Plough the depth of soil
Build stone structures up into the sky
Floor upon floor of mechanics
Meddle with molecules in a vat of liquor
Excavate the body
Peer through a glass at atoms –
Electrons whizzing
Spinning in orbit
To a calculation I’ve studied:
Mathematics described it
With chalk symbols on a blackboard:
Calcium carbonate
Which is limestone from shale silt and clay:
Dead bits of life decayed
From primate-people walking the planet
Aeons ago
Scale is the time an electron takes to circle
Its nucleus
The time it takes for humans to turn into
Chalk again
Scale is the fury of hurtling through space
Never knowing the full enormity of the sun
Scale is the tiny grooves of infinite pattern
Protecting the skin on the crocodile’s back
Scale is the grit that blocks up my kettle
Lime leached into water
Hardening it
Scale is the pattern of notes
Between octaves
Forming chords
And discords
Annie Copland