Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FLIGHT OVER ERUPTING MAUNA LOA, by FLORENCE OBERMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FLIGHT OVER ERUPTING MAUNA LOA, by                    
First Line: Boil, old kettle of slag, and bubble!
Last Line: Boil, old kettle of slag and bubble!
Subject(s): Mauna Loa (volcano), Hawaii


Boil, old kettle of slag, and bubble!
What is it that you brew under fathomless cover
Of Neptune's deepest kingdom?
Down, down, down,
In the very roots of this imagined baseball (called the earth)
Is a mighty boiling --
Little boats ride on the breast of the waters,
Men climb on Mauna Loa's dormant flanks
And seldom turn a second time to scan her snow-touched head,
Inert and blue, encircled in a lei of clouds;
But far below this most correct and placid surface,
Deep, deep below in the mighty paunch of earth's enormous body,
In the very heart of those mammoth entrails,
A seething furnace lies concealed,
Growing bigger, bigger, bigger, BIGGER!
Swelling, bubbling, bursting up a narrow gullet,
The red regurgitation breaking through her cold, blue dreams,
Comes a molten, forceful torrent --
Red light like a thousand steel mills belching from their open hearths
A hissing rush of steam and smoke pots, spewing out the livid slag,
(Mars, himself, perhaps their secret, kindness now of Madame Pele).
Spit and roar and sputter skyward,
Come pouring down in cinder fountains,
Build up brand-new baby mountains!
Then the boiling lake of fire fills the cauldron brimming over
On the blackened slopes to seaward,
Dribbles off in thick, hot rivers --
Boil, old kettle of slag and bubble!





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