Thursday, June 17, 2010

Technological Utopian Splendor


The robots are coming. They will beep into transcendence.
Obliterate death. Eradicate disease. What is left to humbly
abide? In the Book of Job God presents a litany

of unanswerable questions. The idea to be awed by that
which we cannot understand, and so to create
compassion. Sorrow remains, always. The robot makers

have looked through molecules dancing on a shoreline
two steps away from bay windows shining home, and
now can reply to God. No longer is it humbling to fathom

the orbit of planets, the size of the earth, the abyss
in a canyon at the bottom of the ocean. We understand
and create. Time stops still. Our desire remains

to overcome fear. A fear of death. A fear of nothingness.
It could be all over. Zero. Nothing. Just like that. Ashes
to ashes. Dust to dust. Done. Or there could be something

different. Something else. A flow into the universe?
An experience of the godhead? A sparkling light? Uncle Joe
at the end of a tunnel welcoming us home? We just don’t

know. Change is the only constant. Maybe we will
bottle ourselves into machines. Walking talking
bionic beings. Maybe we’ll become brains percolating

in communal jars. Perhaps we’ll learn to set ourselves free
and dance with dolphins under the sea. Maybe we’ll just keep
doing what we’ve always done. Imagine

the edge of the world. When Columbus set sail, his crew
took on the possibility that a cavernous gaping jaw
would swallow them whole. Masts, sails, crew, rope,

even the rum, down the leviathan’s throat.