Hans Christian Ørsted 1777–1851

saw the magnet grow electric

                                               and the fixed points

become a field in rural Denmark

                                                    as the needle moved through various materials

all the while remaining parallel:

                                                 the usual: silver, zinc, lead, etc.

and then tried needles of glass

                                               needles of shellac

                                                                            with all the west above

while below, the east in winding spirals

                                                             traveling three years across Europe,

a good friend of Hans Christian Andersen

                                                                    and of aluminum, whose name points

to its invisible lights

                                within

                                            whose forces crossed and became

his galvanic opus, The Soul in Nature,

                                                          as well as various Italian newspapers — 

to eventually end up as a park in Copenhagen

                                                                       dominated by green, a lake, and shade

in which a woman dressed in green sits reading to this day.