when other safeguards fail,
it has internal measure
with a prescribed scale.
So instead of wrecking metal,
due to gas’s inner force,
equipment can resettle,
after resetting, of course.
So we, more complex humans,
whose limits aren’t plain,
need something to relieve us,
when we build internal strain.
Next time when frustrated,
or feel your patience spent,
sense anger and deflate it,
go somewhere safe to vent.
The photo is from somewhere I visited for work. I didn’t want to write all the technical details of all the considerations go into adding safety valves, I just wanted enough to relate it to a common human experience. Maybe others can lead me to other engineering poetry. The only similar one that I think of frequently is Rudyard Kipling’s Hymn of Breaking Strain. The inscription style was made to represent the metal stamps for writing the data on a nameplate, but I didn’t want to use all capital letters as is used in the industry.