94. Romanticism

Fire.

Fire all around.
Burning out of control.
Riots and revolutions began in Europe once again.
Some feared the French Revolution,
Beheadings,
Napoleon.
The poets and artists wanted people to strive for the best.
To be the best.
Mill wanted freedom and liberty.
They needed equality.
The passionate, romantic, fiery wish to bring back the old ways.
The days of the noble savage.
The days of dreaming with the Greeks in groves of olive trees.
The puffy shirts of Shakespeare.
Selling souls with Faust in goblin markets.
No more of this revolution.
No more of this industry.
We should look back and push forward
Like Janus on the Roman coin.
Always looking to the future.
Always looking to the past.
Never in the present.
The present is too terrible.
What good can come of it?
So two forces push and pull
Like that steam train trying to get started.

36. Prologue II

O sweet muse,
You have shown me so much.
The creation of the cosmos,
How the galaxy started to spin,
I met the Forge Master
He showed me how he shaped the molten earth.
You showed the rise of oceans
Gave me the recipe for life.
Because of you I saw the glorious animal explosion,
The triumphant rise of plants and fish.
How fun it was to watch the reptiles build their saurian empire and conquer.
How humbling it was to see their decline.
I then saw the rise of the mammalian empire.
I heard the primitive drums at the dawn of man
As they walked across the continents
Building blessed and cursed ancient jewels
Along ancient waterways.
Now, gentle muse,
Guide me further into history.
Lay me to rest at Homer’s feet
Where he will tell of his wondrous tribe of marble men
And guide me into the deep, dark future.
O, my muse, you have shown me so much.
Yet there is still much more to see.

27. Man

Here comes the revolution!
Listen to the drums!
They’re getting louder!
Out of forests of Africa
Giving way to savannahs
Monkeys fall from their trees.
On awkward legs and hands for feet
They cross into new territory.
Making the first steps into humanity.
Slowly from fours to twos
They make their trek.
They free their arms and hands
Slowly moving into the future.
They hunted the savannahs.
Brains got bigger
They got smarter.
Sheding their fur
Developing tools.
They realized they were naked.
So they looked for shelter.
They made clothes.
As Habilis
As Erectus
They erected their monuments with new advances in tools.
The pointed rock became important.
It was passed down.
Slowly modified.
It wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t enough.
Another monument was built.
Fire.
Animals feared the red flower of man.
They used it to keep warm.
It still wasn’t enough.
A new group would put these things to better use.
The world of Erectus and Habilis slowly came to an end.
They walked on into the deserts of time.
A new creature came out of Africa.
Homo Sapiens.

4. The Milky Way

A cluster of stars

In a small part of the universe

Spiraling through space and time.

Deep inside

Is the eternal darkness,

The eternal mass

It lies dormant now.

But for millennia before

It actively ate

Spewing vast energies

From its mighty stomach.

The milky stellar octopus

Swam the dark cosmos

As two smaller galaxies tag along

Like small round remora fish

In a deep black ocean.

Danger lurks light-years away

The spinning lady gets ever closer.

Someday

Her arms will intertwine with ours

Causing pieces of each of us to fly off

In a great cosmic collision.

That’s still billions of years ahead of us.

The galaxy’s young

No need to worry about the future.

For now

We turn inward

To a more familiar sight.