While the path may appear familiar, its destination may be surprising.

Some white powder left on the pockmarked face of an old Kabuki gal,
after a million years of mutual exchange between her flinty vibrations,
plants, insects, animals, humans searching for what lights their mind.

Post-human now means "manufactured beings–the homo fabricates,"
dreaming in the middens of the next generation of smartphones, "an
ultimate refinement before eternal retirement" from the planet's orbit.

Time ebbs as we flow across boundaries our ancestors drew,
where yellow weeds stand up for candles lit by the rising sun.

A small dog leaves its master's wake, and runs along the path
that bends back to when we understood indecipherable signs.

 

 

 

manufactured beings: D. Chernilo, “An Enquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns.” European Journal of Social Theory, August 2015
an ultimate refinement: F. Manjoo, "The iPhone 8: A Worthy Refinement Before the Next Generation." The New York Times, Sept. 19, 2007.