Last night the star I named Tesla twinkled at midnight
and all my baroque proposals and obtuse observations
in science freighted through my mind with new ardor.
Back in the lab, my agonizing conundrums dissipated to sweet harmony
as truth arrowed into my consciousness from heavenly archers.
Madness, yes, for a scientist to be shrieking eureka
after stargazing, but this flower in the sky has glowed in me
from PhD to postdoc to the wild dark matter beyond.
It could only have been Nikola Tesla.
Rocketing through my work
then lighting my way to a good cool sleep.
Why do brownout mornings follow starry nights?
Self-doubt at dawn robbed me,
alpha to omega,
of all my august notions.
My superconducting science slowed to a creep.
I plowed along in the dirt of my lab like an ox.
Only feeling the thwack of the whip.
Only seeing what’s two feet in front of me.
One spirit in science could have yoked me to such mediocrity.
Thomas Edison.