Boom

Things can build so quietly—

The weight within a pencil

Balanced on a table’s edge—

Or is it the pencil’s tilt,

Imperceptible until

It’s enough, and it topples,

Like Britain’s monasteries

Once Henry went after them,

Like the Soviet Union

Once the slow hemorrhaging

Started to gush? Tipping points

Are a popular cliché

These days, too easily claimed.

If you can declare one’s reached

Before the tumble happens,

You’re mislabeling something,

And only coincidence

May confirm a lucky guess.

A star can burn peacefully

Half the life of the cosmos,

Then rupture in a few nights—

The rates at which change changes

Say more than the transitions—

The scale is monstrously broad.

Every little change creates

The day disaster swifter

Than thought says, Now change faster!