The Heavens we created
Going up, one more time,
by means of sheer imagination,
modern marvels of ignition
and old midnight oil:
noisy contraptions, coming apart
step, by step, by step
and going up: all systems going,
there’s time for some last words,
some thought, some prayer -
and then at last, at last we’re on our way
but somehow still suspended:
earth-tied, soul-bound,
so much that brought us here is still remaining:
the ghosts of cavemen,
cowering before the wheel, before the fire;
the fires of the servants of the Faith
that threatened Galileo;
the words and wars and all tripe
of all of our boyhood games;
so many, old connections - trivial, profound:
Paul and his hate;
Freud and his fears;
Jesus and His useless dreams;
The Buddha in His hopeless quietude:
restless ghosts that mould our hearts and our desires -
tying us down: a gravity of guilt and hope;
tribal tribulations we cannot escape.
It brought us here:
going up, going up and trying to escape
what we take with us: the wheel, the fire -
tail of ape and tale of man our spirit guides
but now, alone at last,
capsuled and fighting the strings of earth,
there’s time for some last words,
some thought, some prayer;
memories, old as the Flood (old as the whale);
the journey of the Cross:
not quite suffocating us but close - a waiting,
suspended beyond belief and doubt,
that we, we are becoming
the instruments we forged in heat and thought.
We are the blood in our vessels,
the hammering of distinct chords,
the anvil and the envy of the angels.
On our way: we’re on our way.
The instruments keep count of fuel and pulses;
the hull of our existence, of our flesh
is stretched beyond belief or knowledge.
It stretches from the ancient caves,
our primal fears and superstitions,
to the glory of the stars, the cradle of the Gods
we built to guide us on our way.
We’re on our way;
the lies of Marco Polo,
the stumbling mishaps of Columbus
and Cortez and Willem Barentsz,
the simple truths of Verne and Asimov:
we’re on our way and going up so fast,
that clocks will misbehave
and stars will change their colour and their shape -
and still the hull, our skin holds tight.
Cutting our way through the muscle,
the clutter of time and space,
we’re on our way and almost there.
At last all of our knowledge,
aspirations, dreams and doubts,
our history fall silent - and words fail us.
We’re on our way and for one breathless instant,
an eternity of waiting for the heart to start its beating
at the back of our eyes, all is silence.
There she is (and here are we)
sweet mistress that has ruled us,
since time began for ape and man,
looking up and at ourselves,
our universe of shadows;
all the imprint of our thoughts and deeds,
our short and glorious adventures.
Our mistress, pock-marked, bleached by time:
a world less grave than ours;
older not by time but by the pounding forces
of solitude and silence: here at last,
now here we stand in silence.
And all of it is true - and all of it is false:
standing in the middle of a lake that is no lake;
the dust on our feet not shaped by our words,
shaped by our thoughts or shaped
by living creatures now at rest.
Here we are aliens, lost and in awe.
Untouched, unspoilt, so silent
this landscape, defying our efforts
to behold or name: not of our making,
not of our kind and alien to us.
There is no recognition,
no echoes somehow familiar;
no signs of use or consciousness,
no venues and no artifacts:
nothing for us to explore.
We bring our history,
our beautiful and terrible machines,
our stories and our wonderful achievements.
(Just getting here took such an effort.)
We bring our poisons and pollutions,
careless wraps of progress.
We are garbage ants,
now laying waste to worlds,
in search of beauty.
(Even now our shiny rocket
lies like an empty can of Coke
on some deflowered beach.)
We’re garbage: harvesters of junk,
hairless apes and rapist ants.
Garbage - yet beyond the angels.
Reeking of death and bringing death,
destroying worlds of wonder,
we are the harbingers of beauty.
More than angels, we are not content
with dreamless sleep.
We name and tell and we create -
and in our insolence and grubby needs,
our need to testify, bear witness,
we create whilst we destroy.
Eloquent and poignant,
we better each and every single God;
our works and worlds are not depending
upon law or nature.
They flourish and they flounder in our minds.
They grow like flowers and like cancers,
inspiring us to dare and to do better.
We: the mould that moulded space and time:
The hairless apes, the garbage ants;
the rapists and destroyers.
We: these lonely sparks,
these veritable pilgrims of the soul.
We: the womb of words,
of passion play and music.
(We, now for a moment silent,
standing on the moon:
pock-marked, bleached by time - dead,
not even waiting for a spark, for anything:
our mistress who is alien to us.)
Never understanding yet composing,
we carry in our genes, and in our heads,
in our hands and in our loins,
untold and oft-told beauty.
We carry swords and bring about
destruction - and we leave
the bitter waste of restless change:
the garbage and the cruelty of man,
imposing upon nature.
We bring what had no words, before
we forged and forced our way on time -
and yet our moon, this Mistress of our making,
is beautiful because of us - because we see,
because we name and tell.
We may be infestations
but we invest in magic:
stumbling and stuttering our way,
through each and every particle of our creation,
we tell our stories and we give a soul to empty places.
We’re foul and failing:
hairless apes and rapists;
scavengers and garbage ants -
but how we sing to every Heaven we created.