Power-to-Weight Cogitatio
I knew a girl called Angela Engels
With wanted to know the fundamentals –
Who wanted to know how angels flew
When they were far too large, she knew,
To stay aloft the way they do.
But then…well eagles, they’re big too,
And owls are even bigger, sure –
At least the biggest ones are bigger –
And albatrosses, once mature –
And condors are bosses, they have to figure,
With wings much wider than she was tall,
And yet…they hardly seem to flap them at all.
But hang on…there’s always swans,
And swans kept pumping through the air
And turkeys, though they hardly fly,
But yes they can, from here to there.
And bustards too can reach the sky, they say,
(Though it takes them quite the run up
To get up up and away.)
So Angela looked up size and span and stat,
And found they weren’t that fat –
Those amigos averaged less that a dozen kilos
And she knew flat how she weighed more than that.
So unless the angels, like insects, were pin-head small,
They’d surely barely rise and plenty fall.
But there was also mention
Of an ancient, mythic vulture, barely known –
Now that got her attention !
Though they had only found one bone,
And had to guess the rest and how they’d grown.
And just the same for Quetzalcoatlus –
Surely that was just as hatless,
Based on fossils and guesstimates,
Not measures and weights,
And was perched uneasy on its throne.
And anyway, those both were dead –
So heck, for all their trying
They couldn’t be that great at flying, she said.
So maybe angels, though their wings are feathered,
(And they cannot be untethered
From the hug of gravity),
So maybe they employ another method in reality –
P’raps their wings are really a screen
Protecting their backs from a rocket machine
That blasts them up to Heaven instead !,
Like Newton said – and yes, alright, it’s then implied
That then their flight is just a glide back down.
(They’d also need a flameproof gown,
And goggles wouldn’t go amiss,
But she could really take to this !)
Although…well, was it heavy on the carbon,
Swimming like a tarpon through the air ?
Would angels better abstain and take the train,
To show they care ?
Angela hoped they’d be aware, and do without it,
Or at least to think about it, heed her words
And maybe leave the flying to the birds.
Rhyming Couplets 