POEM: COMES A TIME

Comes a Time

Scotty, dear Scotty,

don’t beam me up now.

I’m happy down here

in methane somehow.

The aliens are nice,

and really quite fair—

they all have pot bellies

and not too much hair.

They think I’m a charmer,

a galactical wit!

If only they’d chairs

so I could sit.

But lacking in rears

(and fronts for that matter),

it’s furniture-optional

here on Havater.

I have a new gal.

(Is that a surprise?)

She’s quite attractive

with forty blue eyes.

Her name I can shout

but barely can spell.

Her family is friendly,

so all here is well.

She’s a big bag of gas.

What’s wrong with that?

She has a soft membrane

and doesn’t like cats.

I’m staying down here,

so you run the show.

Keep the galaxy safe.

I’ve got to go.

I'M PUTTING THIS UP.  It's a bit of fluff and fun that I wrote in the early 2000s. The only person who's read it was a former co-worker, who was from Nova Scotia. She liked it and asked for a copy, so I gave her one. I guess that makes me a published poet (sans money, audience and publisher). She's the one who said: "You have big squirrels and small pizzas," referring to the differences between her home province and Ontario. (And if that isn't one of the top-five most adorable things to say, I don't know what is!) She inspired me to write "Acorns" around the same time.

     So, Captain Kirk talking with Scotty aboard the Enterprise. (Yes, Trekies, I know: Kirk never actually said, "Beam me up, Scotty", in the original TV series, or "Don't beam me up, Scotty," for that matter.) It seems our dear captain has had enough traveling around the galaxy, bringing the light of truth and modernity to all those backward aliens. 
I don't know why I picked this one; perhaps I was thinking of other times and places, other possibilities, but my little Kirk poem puts me in mind of something else:

In an Age

of Moonbeams

In an age of moonbeams,

When gleaming ships

Rise once more over the world;

When stars are grasped in fists

Like strings of milky pearls,

And clever hands craft lines

Signifying galaxies; 
When, too, the forgotten,
Dreadful hurt of birthing it all
Is also recalled,
Perhaps then
Some perspective on the matter
Might be attained.

I GUESS THE FIRST THING TO NOTE IS THE COMPLETE FAILURE of Star Trek. I’m still waiting for my jet-car and robo-maid to arrive, or at least a replicator or two. Get with the program, people! (Can today's 3-D printers make a cup of "Earl Grey, hot" molecule by molecule? No? I didn't think so.) Where’s our future golden land of milk and techno-honey?
The Enterprise had as its mission to, “…explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations…” (It is surprising how loaded for bear they were on a supposedly peaceful mission of exploration. Just sayin'.) We waited for the Star Trek universe to unfold in the due course of time. Today, we’re waiting to plant trees on Mars. But how long will we have to wait? Why isn’t there an app for all this? 


 Some years ago, the phrase "in an age of moonbeams" popped into my head as I was standing outside under a full moon when everything around you is still and the air is clear, and the moon is like a spotlight shining down, giving shadow to shadows. When you hold your hands out it's almost as if you could gather those moonbeams to you, like long silky threads. I thought about manned moon missions and how our science has given us such incredible knowledge about the universe. But when the image of "grasping" stars came to mind, it was slightly jarring to me and made me think that the "gleaming" ships were perhaps not quite so shiny, as they first appeared. When the image came to me of a second 'rebirth' of science and civilization, that was interesting, because I had to consider what became of the first. In the poem, our "rising ships" fly no more. I guess this poem is about hubris. 

The second stanza asks if the next time our civilization flowers, will there be other kinds of knowledge that we discover. The birth imagery with its "dreadful hurt" I hope emphasizes something awesome being created.  I was thinking about the "Big Bang", but also about the birth of civilizations and scientific knowledge, and how they come with their own birth pains.
I think we need to remember that pain, that immense struggle to give life and substance. Whether we'll keep this in mind or not while our gleaming ships are currently flying through the skies, is a good question. Perhaps these ships are too much of a distraction. Maybe we're like jackdaws, attracted to the shiny objects, collecting and hording, but never understanding the true purpose or effect of all we have. 

Earth rise as seen from Apollo 8 orbiting moon. Dec. 24,1968

Today, we seem to have forgotten the immense, dreadful undertaking that brought us into being, that created our bodies, our world, the myriad lifeforms within it, and the vast reaches of space. Will we have a new understanding of such things during the next go round? I'd like to think so.

But I think maybe it's time to retire like Captain Kirk and find a lady with forty blue eyes. Blue's my favourite colour. What's yours?

Cheers, Jake.