POEM

Touching the Spring of the Air by Chris Dietz
Posted January 21, 2000 · Issue 70

Robert Boyle (1627-1691)

I touched the invisible
and knew its presence
as a pressure
filling it up
holding aloft all things

Physiomechanico
experiments in pneumatics
with the new vacuum pump
suggested life was a flame
easily snuffed out

I partially evacuated
a large glass cylinder
a candle went out within seconds
and animals soon died
in convulsions

If all is a thing
expiring, using up
itself, why the need
for the invisible

Animals lived longer
and candles burned longer
in a closed vessel
of comparable size
than in the evacuated chamber

Not that a thing
takes action, but action
uses what is there
life and flame
two other states.

Chris Dietz is a community college instructor in southern Arizona. He teaches biology, English, humanities and anthropology. History of science is one of his favorite topics and with the Arizona Humanities Council he has developed a program called From the Sun Dagger to the Manhattan Project, Science in the American Southwest.

Michelle Flynn is a professional artist whose work may be seen throughout the United States and Canada. Until recently, Michelle was the staff artist for the magazine Warmwater FlyFishing from Abenaki Publishers.