Poetry and Pictures

　　This book of “poetry and pictures“ is dedicated to people and artists, who appreciate imaginary arts of water waves, undulating like painter's brush to mirror nature's objects, resulting in vivid, lovely images of poetic sentiments.

作者簡介

Francis Cheng

　　Francis S Cheng holds PhD in Chemistry, and DSc in Chemical Engineering. He had postdoctoral training; worked for many industries including Exxon, Monsanto, and Vanderbilt Chemicals.

　　He had industrial experiences for 45 years ranging from organic additives syntheses for auto and aviation industries, high-performance poly-materials for communication and oil industries, and polyester bottles for beverage industries.
Career-wise, he had 8 publications, and 8 patents awarded.

　　In addition, he had 15 poetry anthologies published with Faxon-Poetry Group.

　　He chose retirement after suffering from hearing impairments.

　　Retirement meant time for break and new experience, while facing tough choice of either walking three miles daily, even suffering chronic arthritis, or succumbing to weight gain, and infirmity.

　　In fact, Mother Earth was best role model for guiding us to stay healthy, with daily exercise, and to avoid falling into victim of another statistic.

John Hsu

　　After taking pictures for many years. I have realized that the ideal photo-art picture is water image.

　　To differentiate from most other water image photos, my photos are comprised entirely of water image, in absence of real object. While this provides a vast water image of sky as outstanding background for desired composition, and creation of painting-like photo. Because water wave is like unique stroke of painter's brush.

　　John holds B.S. in Agricultural Chemistry and M.S. in Food Science. He had worked 32 years for the Nestle Co. as a food technologist and obtained 24 patents. He has two life-long hobbies.

　　One is watching baseball and the other is photography. He has published 8 baseball books in Taiwan and 1 baseball article in The New York Times.

　　Two of his baseball books are kept in Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown in New York. He has published 8 photo books, 7 of them are water image photos. One of his photos (“Labyrinth – Goodspeed Opera House”) won the Best Photography Award at New Britain Museum of American Art. He had 23 solo exhibitions in Connecticut.
 

▌1 Joy of Happy Company
 
Mother Earth has eight famous sibling planets in company for four billion years.
 
Their sizes are from biggest Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, to smallest Neptune in solar system.
 
Each planet has their own mysteries and power of survival after undergone billion years of evolution and transformations in life cycles.
 
The key to survival may be having compassionate, loving, inspiring company, helping one another, and sharing fruits of success together.
 
▌7 Camouflaging Octopus
 
Octopus is mollusk family similar to squid, which has no spine with eight tentacles; yet possessing nine brains and three hearts.
 
Each tentacle has its own brain for actions besides head main.
 
It uses three hearts to pump blue blood for two gills and whole body. Blue blood contains copper-based oxygen binding hemocyanin proteins.
 
Octopus can survive in, cold, deep sea, with ability to extract oxygen through gills and skins.
 
Octopus has color changing cells on skins, and muscle-stretch ability affords easy camouflage like menacing yellow dragon, innocent reef for fish playground, or spitting dark melanin ink for retreating.
 
▌11 Spectacular Growing Weeds
 
Wild weeds pop up on land, riverbank and seashore – nature's marvel.
 
Their dynamic energy keeps them growing to greet the sun.
 
Green leaves swing in rippled waves as if waterfalls are seeking fun.
 
Vivid green leaves flaunt their charms amid cascading drab bundles.