Fluids In Fury

 
Fluids In Fury
   
When the wind is shrieking on Antarctic seas,
And the waves have grown to mountains on the move,
Then skillful whales have ways to still survive,
But humans are transfixed by fearful awe.

How powerful is air that's moving fast,
That drives destruction in the twister's whirl,
Or churns the sea and throws it at the land,
In great cyclones that circle 'round their calms.

So wind and water move and terrify,
As substance soft, ethereal turns to that
Which lifts and tears apart the works of man,
With pressure, speed then serving demon-wrath.

Bernoulli wrote and went upon his way,
But what he scribed remains the truth today,
Though some may doubt, until they start to see
How 'planes may fly and houses may explode.
 
And solids too can melt and then can flow,
Or in unmelted state vibrate and more.
So earth can swallow up a city or
Can tear it down to rubble in a trice.

And when the moving earth disturbs the seas,
Then ocean roars, as giant wall, at speed
Across the land, reclaiming as her own
The beings that had left her long ago...

Observe the power of the fluid state.
Behold the mountains that are frozen waves
That yet are moving, ever slowly, as
They crest and break in rows across the land.

But all these motions -- of the land, the sea,
The whirling air -- are driven by the sun
And by the heat that issues from the earth,
Itself a would-be sun within its heart.

And if you were to travel to the star,
Whose distant fury fuels wind and wave,
And if you could survive, what sights you'd see --
As matter, squeezed, yields radiant energy!

Then all of Earth's long history would seem
A tiny ripple in this flowing sea,
In which the whirlpools known as galaxies
Are spiraling to nothingness...

So matter is but energy, we're told,
Imprisoned and yet serving what's released,
And both in turn are issued from the word
That is a cousin to our time and space.

And though, within each atom of our cells,
The world dissolves as does the self in us,
And though we live upon the precipice,
It's in the fluids' fury that we see...

But where there's motion, there is stillness, yes.
Where all is passing, there is timelessness.
Abandon all, upon volcano's edge,
And spread your arms and whirl towards your death...

For only when we're free of fear, we live,
However briefly, yet in radiance.
Take courage then and dance with wind and wave.
The song of life is sounding in the vast.

2013 July 26th, Fri.
Brooklyn