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. One winter night you ran your hand along a cat’s back, and the darkness cracked open with sparks. Your mother warned the house could burn. You were already chasing what you learned: Light would return. 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. The water rose. The wall held you in place. One flash, you turned your body and rose back into air, and left the weight of water without a trace. Your fourth life came in stone and dark. Entombed for a night in a mountain chapel, visited by no one. 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. You rose. Not from the prayer, but from the promise he made. 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. 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. Your eighth life came in the street. No storm. No warning. A taxi struck without a sign. A sudden impact: ribs breaking, breath gone. No diagram this time. Only the body, slow to keep up. The ninth life came on quiet wings. That dove found you in the dark, and your spirit rose. She did not move. A beam of light fell from above. The life you would not return from, the one you loved. Your mother thought you had nine lives, nine close brushes with death. Each close call, a lesson. A hand that would lead you out of the darkness and into the dynamo of eternal light. The world profits from the mystery of your mind, Upon your imagination we stand.