Elegance Of Their Existence
© Surazeus
2018 12 07
The small white airplane floats through silver mist
to glide over forest of stoic trees,
then bounces as its rubber tires touch ground,
and jolts to a stop by the silver hangar.
Polished wood propellers putter to a stop,
and engine roar echoes in eerie silence.
"I find no meaning in such things I see,
except the elegance of their existence."
Driving past the airfield just after dawn,
Harvey grips the steering wheel with one hand,
then grins as he sips from the cup of coffee.
"Yet I just made meaning by stating that.
Why do we humans invent platitudes
to make sense out of the chaos of life?"
Harvey watches two young deer behind trees
flick their ears as they watch his truck glide past.
"Well, I guess I just answered my own question."
Rays of sunlight flicker through passing trees.
"I feel I float still in my time machine.
Now Robert Frost would have found some weird way
to connect time travel of the airplane
with the deer grazing in the timeless woods.
I feel that weirdness every time I drive,
that I am zooming through portal of time
far faster than how my ancestors walked.
Driving from my house to the factory,
where I help manufacture parts for engines
of cars and airplanes, at fifty miles an hour,
around twenty five miles on country roads,
takes me no more than thirty minutes,
but if I walk that same distance on foot
at around three miles an hour, I would take
over eight hours to arrive at my work.
I can drive sixteen times faster to work
in my car than having to walk on foot,
so driving cars is the same as time travel,
therefore my car is a fast time machine.
I cannot ever go backward in time,
but I can forward faster than walking."
Stopping at the stop sign near apple orchard,
Harvey looks both ways, then proceeds slowly,
and looks at every house that flashes by.
"Though I have driven down this country road
every day for over ten years to work,
I have never seen the people who live
in these houses, nor do I know their names.
I would meet them if I had to walk past,
but driving is too fast for me to meet people.
How many more cool people would I meet
if I never drove my truck everywhere?"
The jet plane with hundreds of people flashes
small and silver in the vast azure sky.
"While the car is a very fast time machine,
the airplane is a faster time machine
because I can fly across the whole country
in less than one day, sea to shining sea,
New York to Seattle in about six hours,
whereas if I were to walk that whole distance,
over two thousand and eight hundred miles,
I would be walking for at least four months,
traveling one quarter each twenty four hours
to account for the need to eat and sleep.
The distance across our whole continent
that would take me four months to walk sea to sea,
and would take two days to drive without stopping,
takes only six hours to fly in an airplane.
Flying is seven times faster than driving,
and driving is twenty times faster than walking,
so flying is one hundred and forty times
faster than walking on foot across the vast land.
The car and the airplane are time machines."
Turning the steering wheel as he drives truck
along curves, Harvey listens to the trees.
"Since Barsanti in Eighteen-Sixty saw
vision of how to harness force of heat
from boiling water that will expand air
to knock the lid off the pan on the stove,
his piston engine has revolutionized
methods of travel across land, sea, and air.
For ten thousand years we harnessed the horse
to convey ourselves and goods in wheeled wagons
faster across the landscape of the world,
but now vehicles powered by piston engines
cover the world in maneuvering machines,
transforming kingdoms of peasants on farms
into global empires of giant cities."
Stopping his truck in the middle of nowhere,
Harvey steps out and walks into the field
where he stands still among the waist high grasses
that shimmer green-gold in the morning light,
and gazes up at white clouds in the blue sky.
"The beauty of the sky glows beyond all time.
When I step out of my fast-moving truck,
and stand in the field under vast blue sky
where white clouds shimmer and the soft winds blow,
time seems to stop, or at least to slow down.
I feel like I float on the timeless sea.
Nothing has changed here for ten million years
except the slow flourishing of plant life
that recycles itself with turning seasons,
and flocks of animals swarming its spaces.
Listen to me! I sound like a narrator
on a National Geographic nature show.
We humans are the ones who come and go
in restless flashes of activity
as we scurry across timeless landscapes
to farm produce, to build churches and homes,
to pave roads, to drive vehicles on wheels,
whether pulled by horses or pushed by engines,
and to build enormous cities of glass,
so our empires rise and fall in vast waves
that wash across landscapes that never change.
Eugenio Barsanti was the greatest wizard
who ever lived in the history of mankind."
Far down the road just before the next bend
tall billboard stands against the changeless sky,
revealing the face of the candidate
now running for Governor of his state.
"How silly now seem political games
where one person in our community
presents themself as candidate for office,
expressing principles for their program
to improve laws of our social conventions
that operate our food-production machine
which we call our American Way of Life.
Because that is what we do, extract matter
as food or minerals from the rich landscape,
process them into meals, goods, or machines,
then distribute them to stores in all cities
where people buy them with cash earned at work
as every person plays their little part
in our complex food-production machine."
Harvey watches clouds glow on distant hills.
"The land is here long before we arrive,
and the land remains long after we vanish."
Stepping back in his truck, Harvey drives on
past farms of produce and ranches of cows,
then over the railroad tracks into town,
past restaurants and shops of antiques and clothes,
then parks in the lot for the factory
where he walks through metal doors to the shop.
Adjusting plastic goggles and hardhat,
and slipping leather gloves over his hands,
Harvey grins as he crafts parts for car engines.
"I find no meaning in these things I see,
except the elegance of their existence."
© Surazeus
2018 12 07
The small white airplane floats through silver mist
to glide over forest of stoic trees,
then bounces as its rubber tires touch ground,
and jolts to a stop by the silver hangar.
Polished wood propellers putter to a stop,
and engine roar echoes in eerie silence.
"I find no meaning in such things I see,
except the elegance of their existence."
Driving past the airfield just after dawn,
Harvey grips the steering wheel with one hand,
then grins as he sips from the cup of coffee.
"Yet I just made meaning by stating that.
Why do we humans invent platitudes
to make sense out of the chaos of life?"
Harvey watches two young deer behind trees
flick their ears as they watch his truck glide past.
"Well, I guess I just answered my own question."
Rays of sunlight flicker through passing trees.
"I feel I float still in my time machine.
Now Robert Frost would have found some weird way
to connect time travel of the airplane
with the deer grazing in the timeless woods.
I feel that weirdness every time I drive,
that I am zooming through portal of time
far faster than how my ancestors walked.
Driving from my house to the factory,
where I help manufacture parts for engines
of cars and airplanes, at fifty miles an hour,
around twenty five miles on country roads,
takes me no more than thirty minutes,
but if I walk that same distance on foot
at around three miles an hour, I would take
over eight hours to arrive at my work.
I can drive sixteen times faster to work
in my car than having to walk on foot,
so driving cars is the same as time travel,
therefore my car is a fast time machine.
I cannot ever go backward in time,
but I can forward faster than walking."
Stopping at the stop sign near apple orchard,
Harvey looks both ways, then proceeds slowly,
and looks at every house that flashes by.
"Though I have driven down this country road
every day for over ten years to work,
I have never seen the people who live
in these houses, nor do I know their names.
I would meet them if I had to walk past,
but driving is too fast for me to meet people.
How many more cool people would I meet
if I never drove my truck everywhere?"
The jet plane with hundreds of people flashes
small and silver in the vast azure sky.
"While the car is a very fast time machine,
the airplane is a faster time machine
because I can fly across the whole country
in less than one day, sea to shining sea,
New York to Seattle in about six hours,
whereas if I were to walk that whole distance,
over two thousand and eight hundred miles,
I would be walking for at least four months,
traveling one quarter each twenty four hours
to account for the need to eat and sleep.
The distance across our whole continent
that would take me four months to walk sea to sea,
and would take two days to drive without stopping,
takes only six hours to fly in an airplane.
Flying is seven times faster than driving,
and driving is twenty times faster than walking,
so flying is one hundred and forty times
faster than walking on foot across the vast land.
The car and the airplane are time machines."
Turning the steering wheel as he drives truck
along curves, Harvey listens to the trees.
"Since Barsanti in Eighteen-Sixty saw
vision of how to harness force of heat
from boiling water that will expand air
to knock the lid off the pan on the stove,
his piston engine has revolutionized
methods of travel across land, sea, and air.
For ten thousand years we harnessed the horse
to convey ourselves and goods in wheeled wagons
faster across the landscape of the world,
but now vehicles powered by piston engines
cover the world in maneuvering machines,
transforming kingdoms of peasants on farms
into global empires of giant cities."
Stopping his truck in the middle of nowhere,
Harvey steps out and walks into the field
where he stands still among the waist high grasses
that shimmer green-gold in the morning light,
and gazes up at white clouds in the blue sky.
"The beauty of the sky glows beyond all time.
When I step out of my fast-moving truck,
and stand in the field under vast blue sky
where white clouds shimmer and the soft winds blow,
time seems to stop, or at least to slow down.
I feel like I float on the timeless sea.
Nothing has changed here for ten million years
except the slow flourishing of plant life
that recycles itself with turning seasons,
and flocks of animals swarming its spaces.
Listen to me! I sound like a narrator
on a National Geographic nature show.
We humans are the ones who come and go
in restless flashes of activity
as we scurry across timeless landscapes
to farm produce, to build churches and homes,
to pave roads, to drive vehicles on wheels,
whether pulled by horses or pushed by engines,
and to build enormous cities of glass,
so our empires rise and fall in vast waves
that wash across landscapes that never change.
Eugenio Barsanti was the greatest wizard
who ever lived in the history of mankind."
Far down the road just before the next bend
tall billboard stands against the changeless sky,
revealing the face of the candidate
now running for Governor of his state.
"How silly now seem political games
where one person in our community
presents themself as candidate for office,
expressing principles for their program
to improve laws of our social conventions
that operate our food-production machine
which we call our American Way of Life.
Because that is what we do, extract matter
as food or minerals from the rich landscape,
process them into meals, goods, or machines,
then distribute them to stores in all cities
where people buy them with cash earned at work
as every person plays their little part
in our complex food-production machine."
Harvey watches clouds glow on distant hills.
"The land is here long before we arrive,
and the land remains long after we vanish."
Stepping back in his truck, Harvey drives on
past farms of produce and ranches of cows,
then over the railroad tracks into town,
past restaurants and shops of antiques and clothes,
then parks in the lot for the factory
where he walks through metal doors to the shop.
Adjusting plastic goggles and hardhat,
and slipping leather gloves over his hands,
Harvey grins as he crafts parts for car engines.
"I find no meaning in these things I see,
except the elegance of their existence."
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