Apology to MW #219
Alfred Lehmberg
Apology to MW #219 (For January 31, 1998)
It's time to grab the keys to my ship "Imagination," and fly out to the
darkest, deepest space. Outside our solar system -- I look back on, and
can listen to the futile little ravings of my squalid little race. Oh,
we hold ourselves so grandly in pretended understanding, and we think
that we're the bee's knees of creation. Complacent, lost in dreams, and
ignoring righteous screams, we wallow in a mire quite fallacious.
I turn the key it's on, and we _SHRINK_ down (almost gone) just to
satisfy the physics of our punch to airless space. Then space (so quick)
surrounds us and in awe we are confounded as the brightness of a
trillion stars entreats us with their grace. Turning this'a way and that
we see the planets, eyes like cats; Jupiter and Mar's approach like
brothers. Quick as 'that' they're gone, so far out we are alone, adrift
(without a phone) our ship for cover.
We think about our place in this everlasting space that goes without an
end, the eggheads say. And it goes beyond the prayers that another takes
for dares on a blue white living marble where we play. There're others
out here with us, and they watch, but won't get with us, enigmatic and
not coming when they're called. They sit, just out of view, and their
contacts, just a few, make me wonder if they think our engine's stalled.
We are a messy puzzle, so our watchers watch their sleeves; compared to
them we're still a'crawl, still down on calloused knees. They were old
before our dirt had even crumbled from its rock, knew of planets in
collision, they had *science*, walked the walk.
But, there's something else about us -- they think we're interesting --
think of that (though perhaps the way we're interested in a monkey or a
cat)! I think they think we're beautiful, though when we're bad we're
bad, it's when we're good we're really good they're gratified,
astonished -- glad. Arts and loves and musics are the source of
satisfaction, is it what they find so pleasant pulled from chaos and
abstraction?
Could it be that they're surprised by our peculiar little antics; for
them surprises few and far between? They thought they had it figured
out, then heard from us -- what we're about? In many years of records --
oh… -- the *things* that they have seen.
They watched Titanics going down with the *rabble* locked belowdecks.
They saw the *workings* of a *just* and *honored* Klan. They watched us
filling up our prisons with what was culled from our society while we
taught our trusting kids to *understand*. They watch us hate our sex
glands with our strictures, codes, and rules. They watch us blaming kids
for riot, them we bullshit in our schools! It's a madhouse they're
perplexed by, it's a dance of fever dreams, a chaos we're presenting --
here we laugh and there we scream.
They see us give away our stuff -- effect a grander plan. They see us
paint and write, and sculpt so white in mountains of our land. They see
us slowly waking up to find that we were not alone -- getting over our
embarrassment that will go right to the bone… They see us rescue our sad
fallen when we think to lend a hand. They see a teacher teaching truth,
no axe to grind, and understand. They see compassion where it suits us
and I think they know our curse, that we're only at our best when
challenge takes a turn for worse.
…Or maybe we're just useful -- as a common white lab rat, to help them
with a problem that they're plagued with -- is it that? We've got
something going for us, of that I am assured, or they'd do like us and
whack us <?> -- and they could not be deterred.
I'll sit out in the blackness of the dark between the stars… far
brighter here than does appear as close to Earth as Mars. I'll teleport
you back <it's *pop* and you're back home> I think I'd rather sit out
here awhile, and be alone. I'll try to get the watchers to construct our
ship for real; insulate us from the madness -- have a better, truer
deal.
We better HOPE they're more ethical than we are.
Restore John Ford!
--
Explore the Alien View?
http://www.fortunecity.com/roswell/arecibo/46/
"I cleave the heavens, and soar to the infinite. What others see from
afar, I leave far behind me." - Giordano Bruno, while burning at the
fundamentalist's stake.