Sugarhouse Park, 11 April 2018

Joggers, bicyclists, kids, and dogs running

Around groomed lawns, past duck-filled ponds,

Surrounded by a constantly thrumming ring

Of trucks and cars. Stay far enough from anyone

To not focus on all the smart phones, and,

Apart from minor differences in costumes

And the designs of cars parked in the lots,

This could be an ordinary-seeming city scene

Any time in the past fifty years, or, my whole

Remembered life. So it’s easy to ignore

The alarming weirdness and unpredictable

Terrors that this sunny, normal-seeming spring  

Park would present to any group of humans

Transported to it unprepared from anywhere,

Any century before the past one or one and a half.

People, kids, and dogs they could handle,

Although the variety of dogs and the outfits

On everyone might have given them pause.

But then there'd be the glistening polycarbonate

Towers and slides of the playground, the bicycles

Whizzing along the paths at speeds that match

Horses, none of which are anywhere in sight,

The bizarre pillars of lamps and telephone poles

Linked by wires, the acres of elephant-hide

Grey parking lots, and the strange sculptures

Of the cars there parked, and that’s the tranquil part.

The cars open like carriages and move by themselves,

Dozens, hundreds, even thousands of them,

Gleaming, rumbling, hissing, blinking lights

Stream at speeds no humans ever saw 

Any being or object move before, anywhere,

Rushing within arm’s length of each other

And of pedestrians, and of the whizzing bikes.

Overhead the skies are crossed by omens,

Roaring daylight comets trailing white.

It wouldn’t matter if you were Benjamin Franklin

Himself come back to life, this violent scene

Would give you one hell of an initial fright.

And yet, this is ordinary, and made by us,

And although we continue to domesticate

Ourselves and adapt to the machinery, it’s not

The case that we’ve had time to evolve much.

This is, for now, just ordinary human life.

But look how much larger and faster, how much

More powerful and more precise are the products

Of our collective bodies than our bodies themselves.

Consider this as you sit, small person, in the shade

Or stroll over to get into your thoughtful car.

As this future could not have belonged 

To our past, the next future will not be ours.

Exoskeletons can only grow so large.