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Samarium

Samarium

It was nice of Vasili Samarsky-Bykhovets,
the Chief of Staff Colonel of the Russian
Corps of Mining Engineers, let that man Rose
study the black mineral coming out of the Ural
Mountains back in the 1850’s. And it was nice
of Rose to study it. It was certainly nice of
whomever to name the new element after the Colonel—
the first to be named after a human being. And
it’s nice, don’t you think, that Samarium happens
to dull the pain in bones riddled with cancer.
It’s enough to give the thing a metal, to put it
in the movies —though it is already there, working
the lights, being the best boy, acting like a true samaritan.
By nathan long

I love our Samarium
Silvery rock
Lives in my aquarium
Great big block.

Goldfish blow bubbles
Just another ore
But we know better
Washed up on the shore.

Claimed by a Russian
Deep down in a mine
Haven to our newt
For us, now, a shrine.
By Rob "Beat-Man" Slater

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