Soon will river ice over
You below the ice
Soon will river ice over
You below the ice
I trundle along the escarpment
Of this thin edge of immensity
Immersed in the awe
Of all that I do not yet know
And the greater mystery
Of all that I will never know
Thus is the curse
And the beauty
Of consciousness
Also, my apologies for the lateness of this week’s challenge. I had to work today, and then this much prose takes much longer to pen than a poem. 😉
The situational awareness of a Series 25 is pretty hard for a mere human to wrap their head around. While these battle droids are equipped with a pair of excellent optical sensors, positioned to replicate the appearance of a predator’s stereo vision, it is their internal sensors which provide the bulk of their operational data. These include radar (both atmospheric and ground-penetrating), with full sonic and electro-magnetic spectrum arrays. Their entire body acts as an antenna, collecting sensory data in a sphere up to a one kilometer radius. The Quantum Processing Unit parses and analyzes this data in real-time, determining all relevant threats in the sensory sphere and developing ongoing action plans for eliminating them.
I talked with a droid designer once who said there was really no way of putting an upper-limit on how fast a 25 can assess and respond to every situational detail of a battle in terms I could understand. “But,” she said, “if you can imagine beating Bobby Fisher at chess one hundred million times in a nanosecond while simultaneously playing every instrument for a full orchestra’s rendition of the William Tell Overture, you’ll have an inkling.”
Crossing terrain and distance
The minutes pass as days once did
For greater men than me
When only Prometheus
Had tested the sky
The land rolls by
All the while stoking awe
Not just for historical men
Bound to Earth
Also for this small speck of stone
This mote of blue
With its invisible billions
In an incomprehensible emptiness
Then, awe too for this small speck of flesh
His hubris of no small magnitude
Believing he matters at all
For the mere fact of knowing his existence
His feeble attempt for eternity
Words released into the twin fantasies
Of consciousness and silicone
I grab a basket
From a hook
Gather light
From the pools
To carry further
Into navy
And the black
Where deepest shadows lay
There I breathe
In dim recess
The light across
All wavelengths
Equal bright
Spirit-pure the white
With neither heat nor harm
To eyes which can now see
Beyond the self
The wall of me
I spy infinity within
Infinity without
And in between
A single point
Without space
Or time
To count
Not even
Infinitesimal
Amount
Sometimes
This body
Like a trophy
And I
Caught inside
Ponder on the things
This body has done
Beyond my ability
Beyond my creation
And I
Wonder I
At who am I
Whether this body is I
Or some other I
Of wisdoms found
And wisdoms lost
Wisdoms over-written
Time-worn wisdoms
Worn out
Worn down
Worn through and through
Worn like a cloak
Like a shield
Or wielded
Like a sword
Bon mots
Of thought
Here collected
Erased
Memorized
Forgotten
Fragments of
Fragmentation
Misjudged
Misunderstood
Misapprehended
Mistaken
The nattering
Incessant
Of those
Who tell
But do not ask
Themselves
And should not
Yes
There’s the rub
Instead be
Silent
Who am I?
This wall
Has no wisdom
For me
Words
They clutter up
My consciousness
Lead me astray
Turn me away
From where I find
The one true I
Deep inside
I breathe
Let go
In quiet mind
At the core
Of silence find
The I that is not I
But All
And One
That is all
I need to know
This simple wisdom
All are One
What more is there
To ask?
With every step
With every breath
With every thought
Unconscious
Inconsequential
Commitments
I live
In a state
Of commitment
But better to crawl through
To this wilderness of consciousness
Than remain unconscious
Battering the cage
Of my own ignorance