Analysis of Balance is the Alchemy



I took an ice block from a fridge
and felt its hardness at its ridge.
The warm air mingling with the cold
transformed that ice block and its mold.
After a while the ice began to flow
now turned, alas, into a liquid glow.
Placed in a pan upon the fire
that liquid glow I could admire
to see before my very eyes
some magic bubbles suddenly rise.
First one, then two —and many many more…
In time no longer could I keep their score.
Those bubbles made sweet song and dance…
Around in circles did they skip and prance…
faster and faster like a Mad Hatter’s race
‘til lo and behold I could not find a trace
of what was once a vibrant stream
converted now to mystical steam.
My pen became Aladdin’s Golden Lamp
transporting steam, invisible but damp.
From spouted pan it rose into ethereal air
to some place higher, Oh I know not where.
A clue it left behind near me
as evidence that I could see.
Some specks of dew upon the ground
moistened the earth in droplets round.
With fire, water, air and earth
that ice block dying found new birth.
I must declare it does appear
from what I’ve seen throughout the sphere:
“Balance is the alchemy
that keeps the universe (perpetually)
in harmony.”


Scheme AABBCCDEFFGGHHIIJJKKLLMMNNOOPPMMM
Poetic Form
Metre 11111101 01110111 011100101 01111011 1001010111 1101010101 100101010 11011101 11011101 110101001 1111010101 0111011111 11011101 0101011101 1001010111 11001111101 11110101 010111001 11011101 0101010011 1101110101001 1111011111 01110111 11001111 11110101 10010101 11010101 11110111 11011101 11110101 1010100 1101001000 0100
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,170
Words 222
Sentences 13
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 33
Lines Amount 33
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 929
Words per stanza (avg) 221

About this poem

Written in a way that is child-friendly and supportive of children’s natural curiosity, this poem describes how the four classical elements of fire, water, air, and earth historically became the cornerstone of philosophy, science and medicine that endured for two thousand years before modern science improved upon the classical theory of elements through the investigation Pandora study of atomic theories and research to support the material basis of the physical world.

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Written on January 23, 1995

Submitted by karlcfolkes on September 16, 2021

Modified on April 08, 2023

1:06 min read
140

Karl Constantine FOLKES

Retired educator of Jamaican ancestry with a lifelong interest in composing poetry dealing particularly with the metaphysics of self-reflection; completed a dissertation in Children’s Literature in 1991 at New York University entitled: An Analysis of Wilhelm Grimm’s ‘Liebe Mili’ (translated into English as “Dear Mili”), Employing Von Franzian Methodological Processes of Analytical Psychology. The subject of the dissertation concerned the process of Individuation. more…

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