To the One Who’s Typing Now
(regarding futures)
I mistype a number
And it’s 2029
I mistype again
It’s 3029
Maybe 3129
Let’s make it 3159
So each number’s new
Now let’s consider our world
Should we still have it
Should we be here
A thousand years to get it right
Maybe we’ve refined
Profit at last
A personal fruition of one’s
Skills
The happiness of that
Is a profitable life
Each one contributes out of joy
Not that we won’t make mistakes
We will
And I’m not sure where
Ego’s gone
We’ll need more materials
Stop wrecking Earth to have them
We might be digging into Mars
And asteroids
Still needing to learn
The cosmos is not for digging
And for slicing up
Maybe other leaseholders
Will have shown by then
To live that
For us
Despotism might be a deserved
Anachronism by then
Democracy gain such momentum
That we will have it
And no other way
Maybe there was
A final fight for freedom
Last and only monuments
Only to us
And worth remembering
The state of the human soul
Might not have changed at all
We might have evolved so that
Ancillary things such as those
At the ends of fingers
And of toes
Might have grown off
Nature evolving, too
Harder trees and rocks
Like crystal steel
Water that will no longer
Be prodded
Nature’s having learned as well
That living with us
Is inimical
We will be peers
If never really allies
We might have learned that
Nature’s soul deserves
Respecting, too
As for God
No need for changing there
Immutability required
Maybe Armageddon,
Maybe no one came to play
Maybe God will have reason
To smile a little
All the time
Weep less for Earth and us
Maybe show up, now and then
Because divine invisibility
Will have lost some
Of its doctrine
With its need
Will we be happy,
Feel fulfilled?
Goodness, I don’t know
Once everyone is fed
And money doesn’t mean
Withholding shelter
Banks off our backs
Having failed at climbing on us
To deceive with interest
(not only banks—the corporations
so this way and politics)
Maybe when we understand
That lunacy means not providing
Water safe to drink
And we don’t want to be lunatics
Anymore,
The world will, what do you know,
Be a better place
Commercials and song lyrics
Have it right
We’ll still be dying,
Actuarily
But letting go will be done
In a circle
With fewer things to worry over,
After
We’ll be a thousand years ahead
Human nature adapting
One can hope
Yes, I know, everything could go
The other way
The devil be in charge, at last
Though that be madness, too
Over non-corporeality
We might have even learned through games
That the body is important
(learned sadly by the wrecking of it)
That matter is
A crucial count of atoms
That heavenward means substance
Hell has none of
Not even an electron
No covalence there
Both abstract and solid mean something
Something wonderful
We’ll have our fears
To face
Maybe at last we’ll face them
Some challenges might be greater
Maybe you wouldn’t
(I don’t know)
But I’d like to see, to hear, to touch
To taste, to smell
To sense the future
Maybe it will be part of the tour
An astral orientation
For what truly happens next
C L Couch
Photo by Jorik Kleen on Unsplash
clcouch123 
July 14, 2020 at 5:18 pm
People are restless souls, never satisfied, always wanting more. I think that’s how it should be. Contentment leads to apathy, leads to boredom, leads to ennui, leads to a slow death. Let’s keep searching until we die and then we can be content knowing we tried. Like you I wish more harmony between humans and nature. A wonderful thought-provoking poem, as always, Christopher.
July 14, 2020 at 6:20 pm
Your comments are always encouraging, Len! I do hope many people keep growing and many more join in. And I hope we all get smarter, too, not in terms of brain size but in understanding that virtues such as human freedom should and must will out. And, goodness, you’re so right–let’s keep searching now!