[Verse 1] Cold fusion whispers — lead and bismuth, gentle, thin, Hot fusion roars — actinide skin, calcium-48 within. Berkelium-249 kissed by that speeding guest, Cross-section thinner than a hair — femtobarns, no rest. One atom born, then gone in milliseconds, fugacious — fugacious: fleeting, vanished before it's spacious. We don't see it, we trace its dying breath instead, a decay chain ladder, alpha steps down to lead. [Chorus] Rutherfordium, Dubnium, Seaborgium climb, Bohrium, Hassium, Meitnerium — period seven's spine, Darmstadtium, Roentgenium, Copernicium's chime, Nihonium, Flerovium, Moscovium in line, Livermorium, Tennessine, Oganesson — closes the rhyme. Au bord du tableau, l'inconnu nous appelle, chaque atome un instant, une étincelle éphémère. [Verse 2] Rutherfordium mimics hafnium, we think, through the fog, Seaborgium's carbonyl breathes like a molybdenum clog, Hassium tetroxide, volatile, osmium's twin, but past one-ten the data thins to almost nothing in. Copernicium — mercury's cousin, or a gas all its own? Flerovium drifting past gold-lined detectors, alone, one atom a month, if the beam gods allow it through, chemistry built atom by atom — nobody's done that too. [Chorus] Au bord du tableau, l'inconnu nous appelle, chaque atome un instant, une étincelle éphémère, Cn, Fl, Og — les fantômes du tableau, lourds, éphémères, presque un mirage nucléaire. [Verse 3] Relativity bends the s-electrons in tight, contracts them near light-speed, pulls orbitals right — Copernicium's 7s shell clenched like a fist, might boil like neon, a metal turned mist. Flerovium too — weak bonds, volatile, strange, noble-like whispers, though the verdict won't exchange. But Oganesson's 7p flips inside-out, spin-orbit torn, predicted solid, semiconductor — no gas newborn. [Bridge] Element one-nineteen, ununennium's ghost, vanadium-51 chasing the californium coast, one-twenty knocking, titanium on curium's door, the island of stability murmurs from the core. Beyond period seven the g-block starts to bloom, period eight theorized — superactinides in the room. But IUPAC and IUPAP demand the chain be clean, statistically certain, replicated, and seen, not one bright flash but a verdict cross-examined, before a name gets etched into the chart's design. [Chorus] Rutherfordium, Dubnium, Seaborgium climb, Bohrium, Hassium, Meitnerium — period seven's spine, Darmstadtium, Roentgenium, Copernicium's chime, Nihonium, Flerovium, Moscovium in line, Livermorium, Tennessine, Oganesson — closes the rhyme. Au bord du tableau, l'inconnu nous appelle... [Outro] (synths drone, fading) Fugacious... éphémère... one flash, then silence... the table's edge still waits...
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