Mylar/Helium - Edit2

[dukealien]

Edit;

Mylar/Helium


Glitter-blue, a cartoon star
birthday helium balloon
wrinkled, half-inflated
crosses six busy freeway lanes
low, cat-played
by unsettled crosswinds.

Mylar abides forever
unbiodegradable;
helium, like hydrogen
but less so, contrives
escape from all confinements.

As between flesh and spirit
meme and material
which is Mylar and which helium?
Flesh escapes, evanesces,
recycles after giving
life its declining lift
but meme and spirit
though they rest and tatter
seeming empty or forgotten
nonetheless endure.

---

Thanks to both critics for good ideas, some of which have been adopted... more or less.

@The Four-Eyed Cat - the idea of the balloon outliving its birthday child is so good it deserves its own poem, IMHO.  So I stuck with half-baked philosophy for this one.  

@achebe - this is an exploration of sorts:  there are no minds, hence no memes, without hardware to run them... but memes (which evolve, degrade, and stuff) can obviously outlive any hardware (so why not spirits?)  Yes, material/sprit is reversed from the commonsense solid/gas.  Turning things around and over sometimes leads to insights... or not.  Thanks for the critique and the read.

Helium is, indeed, a noble and homogeneous gas.  A little research on helium production leads in odd directions:  there are gas wells which produce 10% helium and most of the rest C02 - needless to say, the stuff doesn't burn.  Helium collects under salt domes - it rises right through shale.  Where does it come from?  Uranium and thorium decay, maybe.  Or maybe not.  And it gives us funny voices.