Ages

There have been Dark ages before,
desolate, evil times when humanity
seemed in full retreat, when death
held sway, brought the bethels
plague, superstition, vanity,
greed, starvation, and incessant war.

Once they’re Ages, we can call
them Dark, or Space, or any name
we please, if only to disguise
how little differs otherwise,
how much the ages stay the same;
the Ice melts slowly, if at all.

There’s precious little really New
about our Gilded, Digital day.
Wonders have become routine;
in the Glacial hush of sleek Machines
we scrape along in the usual way,
sharp Stone, tight shoe.

We haggle with the universe,
despite our Faith in the Iron rule
that none of our overwhelming questions
will ever give the faintest suggestion
of having disturbed a molecule.
We Moderns are nothing if not perverse.

Through the rooms we come and go,
talking of “Wolfy,” with a “V,”
our Anxiety fully guaranteed
in megahertz at Enlightenment speed.
We’ve all seen what there is to see,
we’ve all seen the Video.

An Age of Miracles is past
when miracles are commonplace:
surely a new perspective is at hand.
Surely we’ll learn to decipher the face
in which our own chronicles are cast,
our own hour come round at last.