22nd August 2020
She would be the brother, he the sister,
With winks they agreed for this run to the Sea;
‘And another special thing, another,’
Said the brister to the sother,
‘Let’s be like hydrogen, as light as hydrogen –
And then we can float free!’
Hydrogen, that morning, it had filled the breakfast news:
Floating from the radio, that name so elemental,
And into both those young heads,
There to nestle and intrigue.
Between the siblings’ teagulps, so many toast-crumbed questions;
And Mum and Dad had told them, such a very special gas!
Full of promise for the future, a light gas with a low mass:
A gas to let a ship ride, serene in air over the sea;
A gas to make you power, give you clean electricity.
Their visions of that lightness lit such brightness in their eyes;
‘And “hydrogen” means “born of water”,
Which is how we feel, we both,
Every time the ocean calls us in,
To acrobat the surf.’
They laughraced to that gate
Which opencloses “Clump!” and “Clack!”;
As soon as they were through it,
No force could hold them back.
For them, no churlish winglike flaps, no noise of aeroplanes!
Strong young feet piston-pushed
Fast, fast, all down the greenrush grass:
Ever longer stretched their springing strides
‘Til they anteloped that seabreeze sky.
About what happened then, forever secrecy sworn;
Something they anyway couldn’t explain to any other human being.
For she the soster and he the brither
They felt, same moment, an all-sky quiver;
And as they hand-gripping-hand made their greatest leap,
The tick of time fell fast asleep:
They rode the air just as easily
As they could float upon the sea.
That hydrogen moment: is it now long passed?
Or, as it stopped time, does it still somehow last…?
We cannot know; and they’ll never tell:
They could be spit-same twins, they guard knowledges so well!
But whatever the truth, whatever older truths knew,
It changed both their futures, that high arc through the blue.
© Christopher Jessop 2020
