Starfish Prime

Floating icy above the sky
Rotting black below the ocean
Digging slow beneath the earth
Curled in fitful sleep
Inside the smallest things

I don't suppose we can still pronounce the name

In more recent steps on time’s arthritic walk
We raised great stones to remember ourselves
To say: “Look, there men once walked, talked, died and were forgotten!”
Little altars to our evolution
Carved out of the grave markers of stars

Structures that seem to stand forever
The hanging stones in the high places, above or below our sight
Silent as those dead stars and wrought of the same cold dust
We wander tirelessly while they keep watch of where we’ve actually been

Since
There is no such
Thing as movement
Without a
Point
O
F
Reference

So much has been forgotten
Since our early hours of fearful quivering and abrupt exsanguination
Each generation adding its own share of ignorance and footprints to a quieting world
One that had grown old and wise
Long before we stood on only two feet

Age by age we throw our ropes, chains, spears, and nets,
Pulling at the beast of Existence, trying to subdue it
To steady it and put it into some tense stalemate of strength
It always tramples us but there are always more to come take hold of the lines
And hold with all of their will, prayers, and machinery

Either we tame it or it dies during our attempt

(Do you think maybe we’re what happens when a rocky planet at
The right place inside the frost line of a sun
Finally goes senile?)

Whatever happens in our short walks, we will never conceive of the true tomorrow
The one that comes
One nanosecond after we’re gone
We will never feel the spinning and the slinging of an orbit or an axis
No matter how still we stand
…
And rather to our credit, a breathtaking defiance of the slinging cloud of knives we inhabit
We will never know all of the things that were staring us in the face-
Maybe tame and neglected,
Maybe just as feral and unrelenting as cyclopean, elephantine Existence,
Definitely uninhibited by consciousness-
Crouched in the darkness beyond our own myopic intentions
Daring us to blink

For all the lanterns we light and carry with us-
No matter how many we drop and nearly set ourselves on fire with-
Again to our credit,
We were still born to look carefully over our shoulders,
Squint our eyes and put a hand to our ear,
For whatever might be crawling through the gloaming:
Moving faster and faster,
With hot breath growing louder in hungry anticipation of a kill
Or with serpent tongue steady and calm,
Tasting eminent, unquestionable satiation

The forest may grow bright with sunrise and the passing of ailment
Radioactive lines wearing light on the paper atmosphere
But the night-time is always just hours
Parsecs
One accident away

And we have been waiting so long for that thing to catch up
So, so long
So long that we forgot we were waiting

But it
Did
Not

Aayosz mirtaa ihlfr ihttaaffaan un kaalkhoruf
Maa dyihlh fzaandaa ihlfr uh’hluog nozih kundraagjdaaj