Edison's last breath

NaPoWriMo Day 19 prompt: write a poem that recounts a historical event. In writing your poem, you could draw on your memory, encyclopedias, history books, or primary documents.

I’ve included the Atlas Obscura article and link below the poem.

We’re driving along the road to the rain forest
when my middle son announces from the way back
Did you know that Edison’s last breath was caught
in a test tube, and it’s in a museum now?
Nobody in the car knew that before 
and some expressed their views 
with little gagging noises.

But of course it makes a picture, doesn’t it?
A child of eighties cartoons, I can’t help but imagine
that the test-tube holds a green mist, lifted by a mad scientist
turning and turning it in the light, wild eyes rolling
desperate for one more flash 
of incandescent thought.

But the breath is mute within its sealed chamber
the breath is trapped in a time machine
the curling breath who longs to share 
the very last secrets of Edison’s brain
is the breath who waits 
and waits in vain.

---

Curious Fact of the Week: Edison’s Last Breath

WHEN THOMAS EDISON WAS ON HIS DEATH BED, HENRY FORD REPORTEDLY MADE AN ODD REQUEST FOR HIS AILING FRIEND. He asked that Edison’s son Charles collect Edison’s last breath, with the reason being either that Ford, a man of some curious beliefs, thought that the soul would leave with that last breath and he could somehow resurrect him, or he just wanted a final memento of the man who had so inspired him in his own career of invention.

While Charles didn’t exactly carry out that request, there was a rack of eight test tubes present in the room where Edison died that Charles asked to be closed with paraffin, according to the Ford Museum. Somehow, those eight have turned into 42 test tubes that are said to hold the “last breath” of Edison. One is on display in the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, which was given to Ford by Charles. It was found in 1951 in the cataloguing of Ford’s estate after the passing of his wife Clara, along with Edison’s shoes and hat. However, all of this was lost until 1978, when the test tube and the clothes of the electrical genius were discovered lodged under a display case in the museum.

Now the test tube is on display as a sort of relic of Edison, with just as a relic of a saint the belief in it and its symbolism being as meaningful as its truth. You can also see a recreation of Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory set up by Ford in the Greenfield Village next to the museum, another tribute by the auto innovator to his idol.