La Primavera I’ve seen the world end more times than I can count as I sit here watching the dripping sun melt into the bay I wonder what might be said of us many millennia hence & millennia upon millennia upon millennia upon millennia when the sun engulfs the earth in a wave of fire & after when every drop of starlight dries not with a bang but whispering what I wonder will be left of us our art our science our lies & loves our humanity somewhere drifting through space on a golden record a newborn baby crying into the emptiness of light
I saw this article about the potential construction of new missile silos in the desert west of China, and I was alarmed at how casually I initially reacted: I have grown up in a world where the threat of nuclear wars, terrorist attacks, and climate change has somehow become normalized. What’s one more step towards that crumbling cliff?
But, for whatever reason, I pictured in my mind the Voyager spacecraft with its instruments and antennae flying off in interplanetary space, bearing its precious Golden Record; we, who once stood in the plains of Africa and gazed in soaring wonder at the stars, recorded a testimony to our humanity that will, most likely, outlast us. I couldn’t help feel a kind of light reveling in that thought.
Image Credit: NASA