Rosebud Ben-Oni is a Latina-Jewish American Poet, who is known for her creations that often blend Scientific Concepts with personal and emotional themes. She is the recipient of 'The Alice James Award' in 2019. Her "All Palaces are temporary Palaces” deals with her conversation with six year old niece, who asks questions about asteroids and precious metals. Actually it makes her think about Asteroid mining, Quarks, the vastness of the universe, the nature of existence and the impermanence. Thus the poem explores the tension between the desire for permanence and the reality of transience, the temporariness.
In an overcast day, her six year old niece calls her and asks questions about asteroid mining and then shocks her with a question 'Why are we here?'. However, this deep and serious conversation makes her miss the train from Woodside Queens. She tells her that there are gold, silver and platinum on spent Comets. As people are driving cars on coral reefs and getting married in underwater, in future they may stay on stony asteroids. Though the space technology is now, in its early stage, in the days to come the resources in the asteroids can be used for providing fuel and life support for space missions like space travel. Science and technology have also succeeded in dealing with Quarks and Antiquarks, that are smaller than an atom. Ben Oni talks about the six 'flavors' types of Quarks and link two of them namely 'Charm' and 'Strange' with the poem. She says that all precious things that are charming and Strange in the vastness of Cosmos are subject to be perished in course of time. So the newer technologies need to be free from exploitation and they should take humans to hope. They should make humans spend their days in Asteroids without fences and fracking
Thus the poem "All Palaces are temporary Palaces", makes the reader cherish the present, appreciate the beauty of life. She also makes the readers realize that all magnificent structures and humans are a part of a larger Cosmic cycle. So, everything in the universe, though they have the desire for permanence, they are subject to the reality of transience, that is temporariness. In this way Rosebud Ben-Oni integrates science and philosophy through the questions of a child's wonder and the questions of philosophy on mortality.
-------Thulasidharan V
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