Act I: The Barbarian
Our technology evolves
rapidly
we become a new people
a new culture
so different from the past.
Yet our emotional lives
are not new
a 6,000-year-old
Egyptian love poem
could have been written
last night.
A feudal lord of the past
a Silicon Valley
or Wall Street
billionaire of the present.
Has anything ever changed?
Is there a murder
for every love poem?
Is there an act of destruction
for every soaring architectural wonder?
We believe
that we are judged
by how we treat
the least among us.
Yet we do not act
accordingly.
The universe doesn’t care
do we?
Act II: Take a Pebble
You watch idly
as your polar ice caps
melt.
I have never seen
ice
I have never walked
on rock
or earth
I have never seen
leaves blow
in the breeze.
I have never breathed
clean air
nor dirty.
The air I breathe
is perfect
yet soulless.
Do you cherish
the organic world
you take for granted?
Act III: The Three Fates
Call me Ycul
for a dozen generations
my people have traveled
in a starship
named the Ollopa.
My ancestors came from a world
called “Earth”
but I have seen it
only in photographs.
My ancestors scanned the heavens
wondering
if we were alone in the universe.
One day they heard a faint voice
Lucy
a satellite vlogger
from a world she calls Htrae.
Inspired by her voice
my grandparents grandparents grandparents
launched the Ollopa
to one day touch
Lucy’s message in a bottle
and share the wonder
of being alive.
These are the diaries
of my days on the Ollopa
as we voyage toward
Lucy
and her strange new world.
Clotho – she who spins the thread of life
Birth
growth
life
decay
death.
I have seen her
her hundreds of videos
her deepest self.
Yet she
has not seen me.
Do I know her?
Do I offer her real love?
Or a gilded cage?
Is she real?
Or only desire?
Back home
on earth
people are one with nature
they hike
they garden
they prepare meals
with love
symbiotic relationships
or so I am told.
Here on the Ollopa
traveling past the stars
there is no earth beneath our feet
no sky that brings rain.
My ancestors
back home on earth
had all these things
or so I am told.
On this lonely voyage
of generations
electronics are our companions.
Lachesis – she who measures the thread of life
Birth
growth
life
decay
death.
I watch Lucy’s videos
endlessly
I know her laugh
her crooked smile
her sardonic wit.
Do I know Lucy
from the world ahead
any more than I know the earth
from the world behind?
Or is the only thing
I really know
life
in this metal shell?
My world is overflowing
with visual images
of a future with Lucy
of an ancestral past on earth.
But all these images
are virtual
There is no real
tangible
physical
corporeal
embodied
instantiated
incarnate
tactile
visceral
touchable
present
life.
There is only
the virtual
coursing through my brain
like so many hallucinations
fantasies
dreams.
Am I Don Quixote?
a great warrior?
the savior of the downtrodden?
of the beautiful Dulcinea?
Or am I an old
and feeble man
who never looks in the mirror?
Atropos – she who cuts the thread of life
Birth
growth
life
decay
death.
Our ship
the Ollopa
has voyaged so long
we cease to be
heading anywhere
we are simply
the people
of the metal shell.
And now
at last
we arrive
at those
long dreamt of
distant shores.
Or do we?
Lucy is no more
Lucy’s world Htrae
is no more
Lucy’s sun Los
has become
a red giant.
During our long voyage
Lucy’s star
has gone into hospice.
Her star’s bloated
final days self
has expanded
beyond the orbit
of her planet
and swallowed it.
My girl
my satellite vlogger
is no more.
Her satellite
is no more.
Her planet
is no more.
Her star’s sickly body
unable to continue burning hydrogen
now burns helium
into heavier elements
in a futile attempt
to live another day.
The Ollopa
goes into orbit
around a dying star
and a planet
that is no more.
Lucy
my satellite vlogger
sings her siren song
no more.
