Just the NYT review
was enough to confirm
the handwriting on the wall
of the firmament
– at least for one unchained biochemical reaction in the Anthropocene,
in one small speck of the Universe,
for one small speck of a species,
too big for its breeches.
The inevitable downfall of the egregious upstart
would seem like fair come-uppance
were it not for all the collateral damage
to its countless victims,
without and within.
But is there a homology
between biological evolution
and cosmology?
Is the inevitability of the adaptation of nonhuman life
to human depredations
— until the eventual devolution
or dissolution
of human DNA —
also a sign that
humankind
is destined to keep re-appearing,
elsewhere in the universe,
along with life itself?
and all our too-big-for-our breeches
antics?
I wish not.
And I also wish to register a vote
for another mutation, may its tribe increase:
Zombies.
Insentient organisms.
I hope they (quickly) supplant
the sentients,
till there is no feeling left,
with no return path,
if such a thing is possible…
But there too, the law of large numbers,
combinatorics,
time without end,
seem stacked against such wishes.
Besides,
sentience
(hence suffering),
the only thing that matters in the universe,
is a solipsistic matter;
the speculations of cosmologists
( like those of ecologists,
metempsychoticists
and utilitarians)
— about cyclic universes,
generations,
incarnations,
populations —
are nothing but sterile,
actuarial
numerology.
It’s all just lone sparrows,
all the way down.