Future Music

When the aliens landed
we weren’t ready.
Despite material mastery
that zipped us to Mars
that took us to the stars,
and nature in miniature
that bound our scars
that stopped all wars,
we weren’t ready
when the aliens landed.

When the weird arrived
we could not hide.
The thousands stored
and vitrified we thought
were safe in stasis
were annihilated.
Our past and future, bought
for just a glimpse of meaning,
we could not hide
when the weird arrived.

Strangers took to these shores
to deal with us in kindness.
Interlaced was our mind
perceiving only darkness.
There is much madness
creeps into the world,
slouching Bethlehem-wards
from minds tied in torpor.
To deal with us in kindness
strangers left these shores.

The Other stopped in front of us
as we departed tiny Earth
and left behind our weary world.
Comets we caught
and moved among the spheres
that raced predictably
towards extinction.
In the orange solar glare
as we departed tiny Earth
the Other stopped.

We left our topographies
of water behind us
and soared past nothing
seeing no one.
Our universe is bare,
fertile, receptive,
and hostile to the interloper.
In the realms of crystal and gas,
we are made of flesh, made
of water: behind us is
where we left all our topographies.

When distant orbs drew close
we colonised the cold
and planted carbon, seeded condensation,
steeped a world in all that crawls,
drew patterns in the void that sang
sweet songs of gravitation,
and hurled, as gods were wont,
down mountains of vegetation
that colonised the cold
that distant orbs drew close.

For now ubiquity is ours,
Inside and out,
we tamed the atom, mapped the gene,
linked minds, made stars;
we stormed the beach unknown;
we harnessed our wanderlust
and vanished the horizon.
Everything will be known
inside and out
for now ubiquity is ours.