TO PETER LAIRD,
AGAIN AND ALWAYS
CONTENTS
LOOKING UP
Caroline Herschel (1750–1848) was the first woman to discover a comet, to earn a salary for scientific research, and to win a gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society in England.
MAKING CHANGE WITH CHARTS, PART I
Florence Nightingale (1820–1910) was a trailblazing nurse and statistician whose work reformed hospitals.
EXPLORING CURRENTS
Hertha Marks Ayrton (1854–1923) graduated as a math major from one of the first colleges open to women and became an electrical engineer and inventor.
MAPPING WHAT’S HIDDEN
Marie Tharp (1920–2006) studied math and geology in college and graduate school, then mapped the ocean floor.
CREATING PATHS THROUGH SPACE
Katherine Johnson (1918–2020) graduated from college as a math major, then charted courses around the earth and to the moon for NASA astronauts.
MAKING CHANGE WITH CHARTS, PART II
Edna Lee Paisano (1948–2014) was the first Native American statistician to work full-time at the US Census Bureau.
LOOKING BEYOND
Vera Rubin (1928–2016) found strong evidence for the existence of dark matter, opening up new questions about the universe. She became the second woman to win a gold medal from the Royal Astronomical Society.
Behind the Verse: A Note from the Author
Women Who Widened Horizons
Selected Bibliography
About the Author
LOOKING UP
CAROLINE HERSCHEL
(1750–1848)
The Promise
HANOVER, GERMANY, 1760
Fever blurs night and day, sense and nonsense.
Caroline can’t tell the night watchman’s call
from the chime of the postman’s handbell.
She can’t see far past the fog under her eyelids.
She feels hot, but craves more covers,
struggles to sip from a cup held to her mouth.
Water feels as coarse to swallow as sand.
One night she sees straight again
and wobbles to the window.
Star shine casts hope, reminds her
that smallpox didn’t kill her when she was small.
Neither will typhus now.
She raises her arms as if she might touch the faraway.
Counting Notes
When Caroline is well enough to fetch butter and eggs
at the marketplace, Mama hands her a basket,
then ties a scarf over her face.
Cover your smallpox scars so no one stares.
The veil makes Caroline feel small,
the way she does when Mama says, Don’t be vain.
Mama also warns, Thou shall not covet,
which means: Don’t want too much.
She says Caroline has no need for music,
since a girl can’t join a military band
like her father and older brothers.
But when Caroline bends over washtubs,
she sings. Papa, who’s become too ill to march,
slips into the scullery with a violin. He shows her
how to tilt her chin and wrist so the bow’s
particular angles pull music from just four strings.
A Girl’s Education
Mama, who never learned to read and write,
says that with Caroline now twelve,
it’s time to stop school. If your father hadn’t spoiled
your brothers with so much education,
they might have kept closer to home.
You can be a help in the house and be thankful
you don’t have to find work outside as a maid.
We’re poor and you’re plain, so you should expect little of life.
Mystery
The night sky is brighter than the fire in the hearth
where Caroline stirs mutton broth and roasts apples.
She smells medicine on her father’s breath
as they step out to stand on cobblestones.
He tugs off the cloth that hides
her pockmarks, though it never covers her eyes.
He shows her how to hold up her hand
and spread her fingers to measure the spaces between stars.
There’s more above than the moon and stars, Papa says
as a veil of shine disappears in the dark.
The kitchen door opens. Mama calls,
Caroline, no lady ever goes out without a hat.
Come inside. Night is dangerous.
She scolds Papa, No wonder you’re sick.
You’ll be fine, Papa whispers to Caroline.
As they head inside, they hum a song
meant to keep soldiers’ steps steady.
Soon his sickness, not hers, fills the house.
But she never feels warm. Her mouth feels like moss.
After the Funeral
Caroline is seventeen when she packs
her father’s old clothes, sells his trumpet and violin,
puts away his military ribbons and star almanac.
William, who’s twelve years older than Caroline,
returns from England, asks, Lina, do you still sing?
Caroline can almost taste the question’s sweetness.
She trills one of their father’s favorite tunes.
When she’s done, William says, You’ll need to learn
some hymns and oratorios, but with training,
your voice could carry higher notes. He turns
to their mother. She could come live with me
in England and join the choir I conduct.
Mama shakes her head. I’m a poor widow
now and need her to keep house.
I’ll send money so you can hire help,
William says. If she shows no gifts
after two Easter seasons, I’ll send her back.
Caroline keeps her head down, tugging,
twisting, and crossing strands of cotton,
counting stitches, knitting enough stockings to last
her mother two years. She won’t promise
to send more, lest her mother say she’s vain
for hoping her voice is strong enough for her to stay.
The Journey
Caroline and William climb onto the roof
of a mail coach, which they ride for six days and nights.
They clutch each other as the horses whinny and swerve.
In Holland, wind sweeps Caroline’s hat into a canal.
She and William board a crowded ship
and catch sleep
while standing on the deck.
Darkness and stars flicker above.
The next afternoon, clouds gather. Wild waves
pound the ship’s sides. Men climb over rigging,
taking in sails. A gale splits a spar in two,
then snaps the main mast. As the deck floods,
sailors toss Caroline and William
onto the backs of two men in a lifeboat.
They’re rowed to shore and hire a carriage.
The horses bolt and throw them into a ditch.
I shouldn’t have brought you, William says.
Caroline brushes dirt off his jacket and her skirt.
They climb back to the road, catch a night coach
in London, and arrive in Bath early the next afternoon.
Walking down stone streets, William points out tearooms,
ballrooms, and concert halls. Aristocrats come here
on holiday to play cards, waltz, or take the waters.
Caroline can’t make out much English,
but nods as gentlemen bedecked
in elaborate wigs
and ladies in elegant gowns greet William.
Their glances at her seem friendly,
though her face is scarred and she doesn’t wear a hat.
At William’s house, she carries a candle
up the narrow stairs to an attic room.
She murmurs her evening prayers,
gets into her nightgown, then tumbles
onto the straw mattress, glad to lie down
after twelve days without a bed.
Still, they might be the happiest days of her life.
Practicing
BATH, ENGLAND
Caroline straightens sky maps stacked
on the harpsichord. She dusts a telescope
that William says makes the sky seem close.
It costs dearly, but an unmarried man
can afford to indulge his curiosity.
Sometime I’ll show you how to use it.
Caroline shines William’s shoe buckles,
cuts out ruffles for his shirts, sings
musical scales shaped by mathematics and air.
Every morning, she sets out coffee, rolls,
and currant jelly for William, who speaks
to her less in German and more in English.
She practices new words in the marketplace,
but mostly points as she chooses cherries and cider,
selects beef from the butcher. The new language
feels dense as a forest with no way out.
All the trees look alike.
But by winter, instead of Kohl, she says “cabbage,”
asks for “sausage” instead of Wurst.
She sings entirely in English, breathing deep
into her belly, finding sounds that skim the ceiling.
She aims for the sky, which every night
reminds her that what looks small is truly grand.
After Dark
William gives Caroline a turn at the telescope.
Stars spill into pale blue, rose, and yellow pools of light.
She swallows as if she might choke on a song.
What was always in the sky looks bigger,
making her want to see even more,
though she mustn’t seem greedy,
as if she dared take a second spoonful of jam.
She steps back. How big is the sky?
No one knows, but we get a sense of the size
of the universe by measuring the distance
to Saturn, the farthest planet from Earth. See it?
Caroline again looks through the circle of glass.
Those gold rings! Her gaze shifts to the moon,
almost round as a face tonight, pockmarked,
like hers. Could someone live on the moon?
I think so. A telescope with wider mirrors
could reflect more details of its mountains
and craters, maybe signs of cities.
The longer you look, the more you see.
Even comets, which are bright as stars
but leave a spill of shine as they move.
I might have seen one long ago with Papa.
She keeps her eyes on the sky. I’d like to see another.
What’s truly extraordinary is to be the first to spot one.
There’s a lot no one has witnessed, which is why
we need stronger telescopes. They cost a lot,
but I’ve been reading about how to make them.
Caroline offers to help.
Reflections
William grinds glass for mirrors meant to catch starlight.
Caroline stirs in copper, tin, and different kinds of earth.
They heat the mixture, then pour it into a mold
to form a mirror that’s slightly curved, like an eye.
William polishes the surface smooth with sand,
his hand circling for hour after hour,
a practice in patience and precision.
Lifting his fingertips even a moment
could make the metal harden and blur the shine.
Caroline sings or reads aloud so he won’t be bored.
When he’s thirsty or hungry, she holds a china cup
of tea or triangles of toast to his mouth.
At last they set the mirror in the base of a tube
carved from the heartwood used for oboes.
Darkness hides much on earth but hints
at what’s lost in daylight. Night isn’t a veil, but a door.
Hats
William shows Caroline how to balance
the household accounts. She adds the money
he receives for conducting and teaching music,
and now making telescopes to sell. She subtracts
what they spend and sends some to their mother.
There’s not enough, so she folds and stitches
lace, silk, and velvet into hats.
She measures the circumference of a head,
cuts a diagonal line across felt, and calculates brims.
She sets hats for sale on the windowsill facing the street.
For the first time in her life, she has money
of her own. She reminds herself it’s vain
to want more than her mother had.
Lost
Walking to the marketplace, Caroline passes women
wearing white caps and aprons who sit on doorsteps,
doing needlework beside babies dozing in baskets.
She could watch a sleeping infant for as long as a star,
wishes she could hold one,
though perhaps not the noisy kind.
Back in the quiet kitchen, she does division,
measures half a handful of flour, a pinch of salt,
gauging the depth of a pan to determine
how far she should keep it from the flames.
At supper, William teaches her more mathematics
so she can check his celestial calculations.
Spherical trigonometry is familiar from shifting yarn
with wrists and fingers, multiplying stitches of stockings,
subtracting to make room for the curves of heels and ankles.
But logarithms, which let multiplication and addition
switch places, make her feel as lost in a forest
as when English words first loomed around her.
William begins where many teachers end,
pushing so she’s caught in thickets and thorns.
Dear Mother
Caroline dutifully writes letters she includes
with the money she posts to their mother each month.
A neighbor may or may not read aloud
Caroline’s account of how she’s useful to William,
copying music and star catalogs,
which list stars he’s located and numbered,
so others might find what he saw in the night sky.
He now asks her to teach singers in the choir
he conducts. The tuition goes to him.
That seems fair. She doesn’t write to her mother
that she was invited to perform in another city,
offered a regular salary. Of course she refused,
saying she’ll sing only in choirs or when William conducts
in concert halls where women swat down skirts
that could fill seats of their own.
There Caroline’s voice wavers, scoops up certainty.
She looks out at gentlemen wearing powdered wigs
who angle their necks to peer past ladies’ towering hats.
She loves the short silence before her voice rises
with a song about a star over a manger,
which wise astronomers followed. She pushes
her voice past breath. Lift up your heads.
After four years in England, Caroline sings a solo.
Rejoice. One note reaches
for another as her voice fills a hall.
Minding the Heavens
On clear evenings, af
ter supper and singing,
Caroline and William bring the telescope to the garden.
I’m charting double stars to learn if stars move.
William points out a pair of stars, one slightly above
the other. I measure the distance between
them to see if the gap changes over time.
He dips his head back to the eyepiece, then steps away.
He rubs his face as he records numbers in a ledger.
There’s too much to remember, but if I write down everything,
I lose time waiting for my eyes to adjust from looking
close at paper, then back into the dark.
I could take notes so your gaze never
has to leave the sky, Caroline offers.
Soon she sits beside the telescope at a table
with a notebook and a lantern veiled
so its light doesn’t dim William’s view.
She charts what’s known in the sky, dipping a quill in ink,
recording the sizes, colors, and locations of stars
on paper that turns a brighter white as the sun rises.
The Astronomer’s Assistant
After breakfast, Caroline copies numbers,
keeping them strict and straight as a broomstick.
She classifies the shine and scale of stars,
plans the next night’s schedule, including where
to aim the telescope, at what angle, and for how long.
She sharpens the tip of her quill,
then keeps her grip steady while drawing lines
down and across for boxes like tiny window frames.
They stand for sections of the vast sky to be examined.
She puts crosses in the parts seen.
Lines, slanted like her knitting needle to pluck yarn,
mark quadrants that call for another look.
William teaches her to create equations that hint
at when celestial objects might move in or out of sight.
Once-dependable numbers split, swell, surprise.
With practice, mathematics becomes less like a forest
and more like a clearing, the way English words
have become as familiar as the particular shapes
of a towering oak, bowing birches, junipers,
and the prickle of hawthorn branches or holly leaves.
Grasping Mysteries Page 1
