The Near Future

In 1800 in all the world

there were one billion people

in 1950, two billion

now there's six billion

ten billion people by the year 2025

exploding, spurting, surging

tidal wave, earthquake, blink of an eye

how many is too many?

what will the word "human" mean

in 2025, not that far away, really

when everybody will be in possession

of one little room the size of their heads

dreaming revelatory dreams

of the world filled with billions of humans

in the year 1800, the year 1950

the years 2025, 2250, 3137, 483632

wherever "now" went

whoever's "here" now

scratching our heads, trying

to make sense of our success

Because for humans it turns out

winning also means losing

losing folkways, losing space, losing the unknown

whoever's "alive" now, whatever "dead" means

as you turn to me and insist

"I've got a grip on things now"

but actually the grip's on you

population density altering identity

warping thought patterns, pasteurizing consciousness

turning us inside out and upside down

making us forget that every moment in history

is flush with prehistory, is full of acid flashbacks

of us dropping down out of the trees

sniffing the air, our feet planted on the ground

loving the sights, the sounds of earthly life

then someone builds a fire and we all gather round

looking each other in the eye

embracing every last person in the circle

big smiles on our faces

for a hundred thousand years

But today the tables have turned

critical mass, demographic flash point

what human means suddenly uncertain

irradiated, plastic-saturated, genetically modified

people spilling over the rim

uncountable as microbes

especially when you factor in

our multiple, shifting personalities

our vast entourage of memories and demons

and our self-images ain't working too good

anymore, even though we're afraid to drop

the dead hand of ownership-

greedy, competitive, property-worshipping

suspicious, conspiratorial, anti-feminine

feeling up the planet for the hell of it

Private property has got to go

monogamy, the work ethic, clock time

billionaire fortunes, destitution, nationalism

our only option, surrender

surrender to relationships open to the breeze

no more me owning you, you owning me

until we float away from our armored selves

like deep sea divers releasing their harpoons

mental nomads erasing the space

between here and there, between now and then

between you and me

otherwise we'll keep hardening and shrinking

all ten billion of us, all 30 billion, 50 billion

Because the age of smallness is fast approaching

nothing but a little room inside our heads

with a few houseplants that stand for the jungle

dusty terrariums we'll think of as the wilderness

while we christen a puddle under the kitchen sink

the Great Salt Lake-

look, see the bonsai trees on the mall?

see the tiny automobiles driving around

down there below the matchstick bridge?

wherever they go, they always arrive

they never get lost, there's no way to get lost

everyone's options screwed on tight

people jammed against the walls, dangling from the rafters

lining the hallways of each other's dreams

But still there's a voice we can hear

calling to us from deep inside our bones

it says that smallness is not our fate

the next big flash point coming right up

in fact, it's in the near future

when the density of our existence erupts

bursting open what we see and feel

breakthrough into resonance, just like in prehistory

and the trees on the hillsides watching our game

are beside themselves with joy

they've waited for so long, waited for this moment

when marauding humans finally come home

and think the way plants and animals

have always thought, every life form on Earth

forever dissolving the distance

between here and there, between now and then

between you and me

Image by Adam Kang, courtesy of Creative Commons license.