Exploratorium, the interactive museum

The Exploratorium

here by the Bay
plants flower in profusion
and so does learning,
nowhere better than at the Exploratorium,
a museum dedicated, devoted to children and science,
exhibit after exhibit rugged and safe
and also rigorous and truthful
as it finds and presents windows upon wonder,
ways to let kids see, feel, manipulate,
I watch them jump with excitement, their faces transform--
eyes flit back and forth, smiles, laughs erupt,
questions pour out, learning goes viral
and spreads from one to another,

any moment with the universe can take one’s breath away,
they add here to that basic grandeur of the most simple
some quick and easy steps into jaw dropping experience,
and it’s a magic show of water, wind, sand, light performing tricks,
form explored as the eye, the mind grow larger,
rocks of apathy turn over and beneath are marvels,
information presents itself, questions rise and guide:
to guess, to imagine, to think--
all such rewarded, and eyes widen further,
smiles grow even larger,

each of us leaves this bazaar
where the doors of science open with the flourish of a magic show,
what need we of stage when all about us
the universe itself performs in ways
that only gain in wonder
when the ways of the tricks are revealed?

by Henry H. Walker
August 12, ’10