A View From the  Stars

There are so many planets …

Let's look at one.

This is a lush, blessed planet,

life in abundance,

a technological animal that learns fast,

        at times,

but occasionally makes dangerous mistakes.

 

Life unfolds here like a hot iron

pan of popping corn.

 

A kernel is born and warms

immediately to the joys of experience,

the pain of the body

that is the cart for great thoughts,

imagination, hopes, dreams, plans.

Visions of how things should be, could be,

we want to be, rise up as holy mists.

Millions of bubbly kernels swell with

experience and knowledge.

Some know much about the universe

        their world

        other worlds

        all worlds.

Grand concepts and sublime

understanding grow in the

hot oils of a thinking life.

 

Then POP! ---

The knowledge is gone

and replaced in a splash

with a dry tasteless frizz.

Back to inventory.

 

Let's watch more closely, again.

        Born.

The quantity of knowledge

rises rapidly like the thin column

of a thermometer,

like the quick straight lines of rain.

See each line grow longer,

a gauge of insight for each lifetime.

All that knowledge available for use,

        until,

        BLIP!

It's gone.

 

Constant POPPING and BLIPPING.

And there is always some new popcorn

around to carry the knowledge

available on and for this planet,

until the final POP.

Then all swept away by

immeasurable force,

the popped kernels go back

to a new start as simple

molecules that know nothing at all.

Or do they?

 

        John V. Manimas, August, 2022