The Barycenter

Cavacava

"The barycenter (or barycentre), (from the Greek βαρύ-ς heavy + κέντρ-ον centre[1]) is the center of mass of two or more bodies that are orbiting each other, or the point around which they both orbit. It is an important concept in fields such as astronomy and astrophysics. The distance from a body's center of mass to the barycenter can be calculated as a simple two-body problem." Wikipedia

The following poem is by Rowan Ricardo Phillips from his 6/15 collection "Heaven". Mr. Phillips besides holding a current Guggenheim fellowship is also (more impressively) the first basketball columnist for the Parisian Review.

I was the web site browsing the genius.com web site and saw this poem. Bob Routledge, Astrophysicist
McGill University provides his commentary and annotation here http://genius.com/Rowan-ricardo-phillips-the-barycenter-annotated/

The Barycenter

Alpenglow ripening the mountain peaks
Into rose-pink pyramids steeped in clouds.
How this light, like a choir of silence,
Queues in the air to sing the snowy mass
To shine, I don't know. And yet the chilled dusk,
Remarkable and rude, runs rouge and glows

As though the blue poem of the Earth desired,
And became, the great rose poem of Heaven,
With its champagne peaks and savage thickets
And shrub and break and tangling bushes.
The poem that revolves in two directions
At once, circling us in two directions.

Mr. Routledge suggests Barycenter, the poem, has a Barycenter, an emotional center point around which the 'two' poems, the blue poem and the rose poem rotate. It is an excellent read on the poem.

I am still thinking about it. The poem is describing the cyclic event that occurs each day in those few moments, when the day 1st breaks. Is that the Barypoint? A point in time that changes each day but who's effect is the same.

Perhaps the cold blue poem is reason and the rose poem with its champagne peaks, savage thickets are our emotions. As stated, I am just saw the poem last night. If reason and emotion, then where do you see the Barycenterr of this poem...enlightenment?

BC

I don't know.

Perhaps the heavy (βαρύ-ς) reference in the title is ironic. The light of dawn and dusk is weightless and is diffused and uncentered (after the sun departs, before the sun arrives). Celestial bodies can not revolve in two directions at once, but a poem can move in multiple directions at once.

I need more data.

Cavacava

I find the physical description of the Barycenter center fantastic. The Barycenter of the earth and the moon is that point where these two celestial bodies are one in gravity. A physical point that is 1000 feet beneath your feet. If I understand it correctly, the earth and the moon form a conjunction of each others gravitational force. If the earth and the moon had the same mass their Barycenter would be half way between each.

The Barycenter of the sun with respect to all the planets rotating around it is still within the mass of the sun! The Barycenter of our solar system is a point, which is frozen in place inside the sun and the Barycenter of the Milky Way...no clue.

Gravity is a physical force. Gravity is an emotional force. a seriousness, a grave set of circumstances. Does a poem that can move in two directions at the same time, physically and emotionally have a Barycenter? And if yes then where is it and how could it be described. Is the Barycenter of man in his body or in his thought or is it somewhere in the middle? The poem, I think, is suggesting it is a moment in time.

The Barycenter

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