Poetry for Engineers: Nine Lives of Nikola Tesla
He was born into a storm, lightning split the summer sky, in a village the world had not yet heard of. The midwife called it a bad omen, his mother called it a sign. Your first life began in a storm, under open sky.
Key Takeaways
- One winter night you ran your hand along a cat's back, and the darkness cracked open with sparks.
- One flash, you turned your body and rose back into air, and left the weight of water without a trace.
- Your sixth life came in silence, and it stayed.
Every sound cut through you, a clock three rooms away, a ringing that would not leave, a noise you learned to bear, until you lived inside that noise and made a home in there.
- Only the body, slow to keep up.
- The world profits from the mystery of your mind, Upon your imagination we stand.
Your second life came underwater, in the current deep. No light, no air, the river pulling you under, the surface closing above you without a sound, and something in you refused to sink or sleep. Your third life came at the dam.
Only silence and the memory of a spark. You called it an awful experience and left it there, untold. Your fifth life came in fever, nine months cholera held you down, until your father said: Survive, and choose your own ground.
Your seventh life burned on Fifth Avenue, not your body, but your work. Not a thief of fire, but one who stayed with the blaze. A modern Prometheus, your life's work turned to ash, "I must begin again," you said, and turned to new ways.
For more details please read the original article at IEEE Spectrum AI.
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