Archive 07/20/09 - (1)

   

Learned

                                                                  

Cautiously, we climbed down from our leafy canopies,

Huddled under our shady trees, for millenniums,

Before venturing farther and farther away, into our caves.

 

Carefully, warily, perilously,

We crawled out of those convenient retreats

Perforating precipitous cliffs, lush valleys of our earliest days,

 

To kill creatures, harvest grains, with the crudest of tools

We learned to make from rocks and wood and clay.

Then we learned to rub twigs together, strike flints,

 

To ignite sparks into flames, illuminate night into day,

Heat meat, to supplement vegetation...

Learned to make wheels, from odd-shaped objects —

 

Circles capable of turning inertia into kinesis,

Dreams into fluid movement

(Wheelbarrows and wagons becoming steam engines, cars)...

 

Learned, from watching birds command the skies,

Soar above our abandoned canopies and caves,

How to fly, in heavier-than-air contraptions, without feathers...

 

Learned to survive the elements, predators, plagues,

Adapt to time's relentless advances and declines,

The degradations of our own ravenous demands on the planet...

 

Learned all these miraculous adaptations to life on Earth,

And for what, ultimately? Ultimately, for what?

So that we might leave a tiny trace of adventitious light

 

Twinkling, evanescently, in vast, black, intergalactic space,

Just in case...just in case agencies are watching,

Who might guide us past the stars, after our sun goes dark?

 

 

                                               

 

07/20/09 - (1)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
       

 

 
   
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