One bubble, then two
And the water was boiling itself away
Waiting til its droplets entered the air,
Never to return to its domain
Forever to join a vast world
What fear that triggered within watchful souls!
For ephemerality became weakness
And weakness made them all want to shrink back
Into their turtle shells made of glass
Tap tap
Shatter
Enter into the world of fear.
The entertainment derived
from watching droplets evaporate away
Posed quite the dilemma
for the weak hearted
Unable to accept the end
of a parched basin
Once rich in life.
Latch on tightly to every molecule
Hurry and snatch them back
Force them down to condense
and return lovingly to you
Even if it means snatching every molecule
in the world
Empty every ocean, drain every cloud
so the droplets lost to the world
might be in one of them.
Fortify the glass with platinum
Brace for the epic crusade
to acquire and conquer.
Don’t forget to carry along a little pouch
to pocket each droplet
before it might escape once again.
And hopefully
it won’t be too long before the realization
boiling water was always meant to escape
into a cyclical world
comes crashing into the illusion.
Lucy Zhang 