So, they couldn’t see …
©April 26th, 2017
By Vijaya Sundaram
So, they couldn’t see,
These creatures who lived
On this swirling blue planet,
Laden with cloud and wind.
We moved among them
But they passed through us
Unseeing, unheeding,
And when we spoke,
They couldn’t hear.
Sometimes, the strange bulbous orbs
Above their breathing gills
Would turn this way and that,
But we didn’t understand what they were.
We carried our world, and it was
Transparent and pure.
We moved in our membranes
Floating in the star-shine
Flowing over their world.
Sometimes, they would hold an object
In their appendages, ugly and misshapen
(Flippers so rudimentary,
We laughed at them), and the objects
Flashed. We knew they flashed,
For our skins burned.
Sometimes, we appeared visible
To their flashing objects,
And our outlines shimmered,
Red as blood.
Were those flashing objects
The real people of this planet?
Could they see us?
We asked them, but they were inert.
They gave no indication.
Their star grew older,
And their planet tilted further,
Coughing and juddering.
The air grew denser, darker
Slowly, one by one, they stopped moving,
Sagging beneath the weight
Of the poisonous air.
We moved among them.
Their bulbous orbs did not move.
We flowed over their forms,
They gave no sign.
Still, they held their objects
Clutched in their hands.
We flowed over the objects,
Prised them free, and ate them.
They held memories in them,
And as the memories broke loose,
We gasped with pain,
For we now knew who these creatures
Had really been, how they’d lived,
What they had created,
What they’d endured,
What they’d achieved,
What they’d built,
And what they’d destroyed.
And even as we mourned them,
We celebrated their death,
For though they were great,
They had not been able to see
In a world where one’s skin
Held all the vision of a universe
In every cell.
If you do not see,
You destroy.
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Today was Day 26 of NaPoWriMo 2017, and the prompt read:
Have you ever heard someone wonder what future archaeologists, whether human or from alien civilization, will make of us? Today, I’d like to challenge you to answer that question in poetic form, exploring a particular object or place from the point of view of some far-off, future scientist? The object or site of study could be anything from a “World’s Best Grandpa” coffee mug to a Pizza Hut, from a Pokemon poster to a cellphone.