California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick presented an original poem, “The Heart as a Universe,” commemorating NERSC's 50th anniversary. - Credit: Margie Wylie, Berkeley Lab
When the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) marked its 50th anniversary in October, the NERSC community celebrated in many ways: with proclamations and statistics, with breakthroughs and challenges met, with memories of what has been and plans for what’s to come.
In the middle of it all, a poem captured some of the spirit of NERSC’s work.
On October 22, California Poet Laureate Lee Herrick attended the 50th anniversary NERSC User Group Annual Meeting and presented an original poem titled “The Heart as a Universe,” composed for the occasion.
Born in South Korea and raised in California, Herrick has been the California Poet Laureate since 2022. He is California’s tenth poet laureate and the first Asian American to serve in the role. At the User Group Annual Meeting, NERSC User Engagement Group Lead Rebecca Hartman-Baker introduced Herrick.
“There is an inherent connection between science and poetry,” said Hartman-Baker. “Both can induce wonder and change your outlook in fundamental ways. We were thrilled that Lee accepted our invitation to share his unique view into the wonders of the Universe with us.”
The Heart as a Universe
Lee Herrick, California Poet Laureate
For the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, Celebrating 50 Years
Consider the heart. Like the universe,
it expands, the rush of blood and galaxies
of light stretching into the future,
like the first time you fell in love
or saw the sun rise over the hills.
Consider gravity. How leaves fall
from the trees with such ease
or how stars arrange in the sky.
To understand the heart, like the universe,
is to know: wonder is infinite.
We need it as much as we need
water, light, electromagnetism.
Storm, weather, frequency bundle,
why birds fly in an echelon,
how the heart is muscle
as much as machinery,
dark matter and energy,
a question of gravitational likelihood,
a sweet discovery. To compute
is to store, harness, accelerate, unleash
our best ideas into the world,
into the next fifty years
of scientific discovery, the next
brilliant formations of light.
About NERSC and Berkeley Lab
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) is the mission computing facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, the nation’s single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences.
Located at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), NERSC serves 11,000 scientists at national laboratories and universities researching a wide range of problems in climate, fusion energy, materials sciences, physics, chemistry, computational biology, and other disciplines. An average of 2,000 peer-reviewed science results a year rely on NERSC resources and expertise, which has also supported the work of six Nobel prize-winning individuals and teams.
NERSC is a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility.