Analysis of The Alchemy of Balance

Karl Constantine FOLKES 1935 (Portland)



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.
The sight was lovely to embrace.

What glee it placed upon my face.
‘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;
perpetually, perpetually,
in harmony.”


Scheme AABB CCXX DDEE FFGG GGHH IIJJ KKLL MMNN KKKK
Poetic Form Quatrain  (89%)
Metre 11111101 01110111 011100101 01111011 1001010111 1101010101 100101010 11011101 11011101 110101001 1111010101 0111011111 11011101 0101011101 1001010111 01110101 11110111 11001111101 11110101 010111001 11011101 0101010011 1101110101001 1111011111 01110111 11001111 11110101 10010101 11010101 11110111 11011101 11110101 1010100 1101001000 0100001000 0100
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,320
Words 276
Sentences 16
Stanzas 9
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 36
Letters per line (avg) 28
Words per line (avg) 7
Letters per stanza (avg) 111
Words per stanza (avg) 26

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 by karlcfolkes on November 05, 2022

1:22 min read
253

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 “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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