Three poems by a water-quality chemist, each built around a science theme. 'Corona: A threatening beauty' plays on the word's meanings of 'crown' and 'luminous body', recalls that 'all that glitters is not gold', and ends by urging sanitation, awareness, knowledge and empathy rather than chasing advertisements for masks and sanitisers.
'Pi: a myth' reflects on the circle ratio as an irrational, transcendental number whose endless digits tax supercomputers and which reappears in the 'meander ratio' of rivers, concluding that the universe conceals many myths untold. 'Polluting the Nights' describes an owl returning without food and argues that artificial light at night harms nocturnal creatures, plants and human health, naming glare, light trespass and over-illumination as forms of light pollution and closing with the motto 'live and let live'.
