Before Machinery

Before machinery could cut to an infinitely precise decimal
Before computers could process work for statisticians
In the time of sticks and animals, the Moon was the only perfect circle
Faultless in its pure untouchability

But now with satellites and telescopes
You can see the ridges and craters that roughen what was once round and perfect
Thousands of impacts revealed along the face
What was turned into a thick piece of rock in outer space

When I was young, I understood so little about myself
And though I am smarter now, I am marvelled by less of the world
Where things are gained, something else must also be lost
A great demystifier

Before all things could be recorded anywhere and at any time
And before pavement covered a third of your city
In the time of deadly medicine, the stars were the only proof of more
They told truths, the future and the past of all people

But now, the sum of all knowledge sits within a space
With few true unknowns unprovable and unfalsifiable
And stars now decorated by science and math
Turned into hydrogen and helium gas

There's an airplane wreck that crashed headfirst into the west side of the bank
A DC-3 that fell out of the sky, now patiently sat
Then government came and blew it up into bits of electronics and metal
And spread it around and made it twisted, unscrappable

A stock of weeds growing over unused garage doors
A patch of grass breaking through a rural tennis court
The marks of horses' hoofs in Victoria city asphalt
A rat-shaped hole in Chicago concrete sidewalk

I fantasize about my house reclaimed by invaded space
Of being overcome by hushed trees and wild grass
With animals building small homes inside the walls
With pieces of its insulation

With fire spilling through one day and burning it back to nothing
And in a few million years, when I arrive here again
A great recursion