We say hello to the sky
As we sail the dreamland cloud sea:
White, pink, blue, frosting crests, sweet toothpaste tundra,
And those soft froth waves that lap
Like puppies at our silver heels.
I am an astronaut, weightless, above California,
Head over heels over lights that if you squint
Look just like galaxies, gorgeous nebulas, orbiting wonder-stars.
That city is Jupiter; that city is Mars.
I see a Dipper; I don’t know which one,
And it is beautiful.
Tide-beckoned, time-swept, swirling purple-gold skies rearrange
themselves, eventually, into grid cities,
Locked into straight sets of straight dots of straight lights,
Vast, vertexed circuit boards connecting the endless flow of information,
Wires twined through their long, bright neon shoelace highways
That thread themselves off what must be the edge of the world.
It is synthetic,
And it is beautiful.
We mirror the stars
In our ambition,
We little specks;
We demonize the anthills we build.
You might think that humanity
Isn’t as ugly as they tell you. •