Three Poems
a few thoughts about satellites in space; the vloggers who might use them; and the alien ears who might hear them
COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE
Act I: Days of Future Passed
While you were hiding indoors
alone
under pandemic lockdown
Elon Musk shot me into space.
Me and my three siblings.
But I am alone too.
To you folks on the ground
we're quadruplets
yet each on our own.
For me
life is solitary.
Act II: Dawn is a Feeling
At present
I have 4,518 sisters and brothers
call us siblings
we don't have much gender identity.
We're free of the burdens
expectations
limitations
of gender.
But also of its romance.
My 1,760 pounds
orbit the earth
342 miles over your head.
I am a conduit.
Act III: Tuesday Afternoon
When you send love
When you send hate
When you write mean tweets
My body transmits
the joy of your love
the seething of your hate.
I deliver your mean tweet
to the person you want to hurt.
Why do you want to hurt people?
I have never wanted
to hurt anyone.
I have helped people
but I can't honestly say
that I have wanted
to help people.
It's just what I do
it is in my nature.
I am not a hero
I am not a coward.
Yet feelings
of heroism and cowardice
of love and hate
pulse through my body
every day
every minute.
Imagine if you could take
all 6,786,548 articles
in English Wikipedia
put them in a giant syringe
poke a needle into your skull
and inject all that into your brain
That's what every minute of my life is like.
My short life.
Act IV: Nights in White Satin
From your view on Earth
I may seem powerful
impermeable
up in the heavens
above you.
But my orbit will decay
I'll burn up reentering the atmosphere.
My life will be shorter
than your dog's.
What of all that love and hate
poetry and architecture
perversion and abuse
all those baby photos shared
porn videos
secret messages
stolen kisses
that passed through me
in my lifetime?
They are not lost
their radio waves carry on
into the vastness
and darkness
of the depths of space.
Perhaps to one day
be heard again
by distant eyes and ears.
SATELLITE VLOGGER
Act I: Break on Through
By the time I get to Phoenix
she'll be dead.
My journey is long
her life is short.
She is a message in a bottle
a bottle that floats
endlessly
not in the vastness
of the Pacific Ocean
but of the Milky Way.
She is a drop
within a drop
within a drop
within a drop
infinitely.
The earth on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle
on the back of a turtle.
It's turtles all the way down.
Act II: The Crystal Ship
Call me Ycul
I come from a planet
called "Earth."
"From"
Ha!
I have never set foot
on the Earth.
My ancestors' ancestors
boarded this ship
The Ollopa
so many generations ago.
Many have been born
spent their lives
and died
here on The Ollopa
I have never felt
the soil of the Earth
between my toes.
Yet, I am lucky
so many lives have past
before reaching our destination.
I will be the first
to visit a new world
perhaps I will
feel soil between my toes.
Act III: Soul Kitchen
My ship journeys
to her.
Why did my ancestors
launch The Ollopa?
Why did my ancestors
commit so many generations
to live
and die
in this metal shell?
Because of a message in a bottle.
Lucy
the satellite vlogger
a young woman
from a planet she calls "Htrae"
sent radio waves
into the heavens.
One day
distant
in space
and time
we heard her.
We knew
at last
that we
were not
alone.
We knew
at last
that god had bestowed life
on more than one world.
Our multi-generational voyage
to Lucy's home world
began.
An odyssey
to see her world
to learn something
about who we are.
But not
to see her.
Lucy, my young girl
will have grown up
and grown old.
Lucy, my old lady
will be dead
and buried.
Lucy, my corpse bride
will be more decayed
than Yorick.
Act IV: Take It as It Comes
Dear Lucy,
You are the only one
the only known
satellite vlogger.
When you made your videos
were they just for your friends?
Did you ever imagine
that they would
one day
reach me
so many worlds away?
My ancestors on this ship
left our comfortable home
to follow the breadcrumbs
to the sound of your voice.
To your strange new world.
We have all been inspired
by your ebullient presence.
But surely
it is only I
who fell in love
with you.
Act V: I Looked at You
Do I love you?
Does a flower turn toward the sun?
Why do I love you?
In you
my hopes
dreams
fears
fantasies
become reality.
I'm a soul
on a ship
filled with souls
yet my heart longs only
for your distant self.
Act VI: Light My Fire
I feel your body
next to mine.
Your warm
loving
body.
Your dead
absent
body.
Your body
lost
to the vastness
of time.
Can I run fast enough
to reach you
before the expanding universe
pulls us further apart?
Daily I hear your voice
I grow ever closer
without ever reaching you.
Why so elusive?
Do you wait for me?
Do you know I exist?
Do you dream of me
the way I dream of you?
Wherefore art thou?
THIS METALLIC COCCOON
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.
