The Baghdad Battery Poem by Doug Stewart

A skimmer stone slithers on a frozen pond,
A spinning top flashes on wet tiles,
A careening cart, slides down a lofty hill
Each was aware, each knew the fare of
Gravity’s charges.

Apples may fall on thinkers’ heads, but just as
Readily on dullards. Unless dropped with intention,
Without malleus of thought, lead and feather do no dance.
Discovery is nothing without object, observation is simple
Vanity without purpose.

Beware those, my son, whose knowledge comes before
Evidence, who reverence texts of old and shun truth even
Under glass, quartered, mounted, and displayed for all to see.
It is those who will not see, the lovers of the Jabberwocky, who
Insist it yet lives.

They cannot believe humans built magnificence, so Aliens.
They cannot believe humans wrote beauty, so gods.
They cannot believe humans sailed the early seas of earth
And danced on top of mountains only recently endured. Early
Man, merely decorated smoky caves.