Cheryl Solis is an alumna of the Stanford MLA program, where she focused on interdisciplinary studies in paleography and the works of James Joyce. She graduated from Trinity University with a major in English literature and a minor in computer science. Cheryl currently works as a Lead Technical Writer for Stellate.co and has been an award-winning technical author, Technical Writing Director, and writing consultant in Silicon Valley for many years. Her interests include the material culture of the book, modernist fiction, archaeology, and science fiction.
poetry
Three Poems: Techne, Episteme, and Pathei Mathos
In appreciation of Drs. William Chace and JoAn Edwards Chace
Cheryl Solis, Stanford University
Grace Hopper
CONDITION the world of machines to a new pattern; DO
More to move them past the notations of numbers.
With a language beyond the esoteric mathematical few,
Develop English commands for a new age of computer wonders.
OR cede programming to the select, and abandon innovation;
DO nothing but engage in a private retreat, leaving your Linker
To languish in obscurity, never to inspire a new generation
Of computer languages and not midwife the UNIVAC, just tinker.
ELSE DO stand forthright like the Navy Admiral you were,
To succeed in expanding computing with FLOWMATIC,
Persisting, finding that path forward, until they could concur.
You open new worlds, unyielding; you upend the static
END to your state as reservist retired, you persevere,
Emblem alone, woman, and pioneer.
Atheneum
for the hierophants at Stanford
Though time may assail your loveliness day-by-day,
In this mild winter, your tender fire makes us burn
For your arched gaze and the sandstone clay
Of your skin. Men and women of divers arts, still yearn,
To join your lavish court and enter through the spirit gate,
To stroll the palm-lined courtyards of Alhambran fancy.
Hierophants, searching for truth, seek to unlock your fate,
Goldsworthy, Molly’s eternal yes, and Spenser’s posey,
Echoed by the sinuous stone Ouroboros at your feet, define
Transcendental interlace, immortalized by Druidic memory.
You engage in endless transformation, renewal and decline
Back to the river’s beginning, back to the boneyard to fade.
Yet, though these lines through time may grow outworn
Like Helen at the gates of Troy, you endure, beyond time’s scorn.
To a Spanish Infanta
In memorium
The crows circle above my head.
Their harsh cawing echoes the wild thoughts
That swirl in dark, unhappy dances in my mind.
The gun in your hand, instrument of your
Shortened and unrelenting mortality
Was insensate to the hand that held it.
The bullet lodged in the chamber, Glittering silver and brass, the colors
Echoed, shined, shimmered in a terrible
Rejoinder to winter’s solstice promise
Of life and renewal.
Red berries, spiked green holly leaves, and
The ivy that tenaciously covers the ground,
They haunt my sight as I think of you.
That gun was no protection against the
Savage thief of your hope and happiness,
But a deadly collaborator in your final act.
It did not save you from loneliness
And the soul-sad procession,
The winding pavane of your despair.
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