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Friday, April 05, 2019

THE WATCHERS

by Jonel Abellanosa


"Are we alone? Probably not. After all, astronomers have already found 4,001 confirmed exoplanets in our Milky Way galaxy, and expect there to be over 50 billion exoplanets out there. For scientists gathering in Paris today, the question is different: why haven’t we made contact with alien civilizations?" —Forbes, March 18, 2019. Image source: Hadrian’s Gate.


Not because we’re a threat to them.
Only a hundred years for the Wright
Brothers’ wooden plane to turn into
the F-22 stealth fighter. So if they
preexisted us for millions of years?
Common to know life terminated
at least twice: a giant space rock and
a flood. Our planet holds the living
principle. We’ve to be zooed in the
Fermi Paradox. Destroyers most of us,
the living vessel the object of concern.
In plain sight the variable they gave
us to exit the simulation’s looping
subroutine: love. But most choose
hate and greed, indifference. They’re
now preparing to restart the program.


A previous contributor to TheNewVerse.News, Jonel Abellanosa lives in Cebu City, the Philippines. His poetry has appeared in numerous journals, including Rattle, That Literary Review, McNeese Review, Mojave River Review and Star*Line, and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Dwarf Stars award. His recently-published books are Songs from My Mind’s Tree (NY: Clare Songbirds Publishing, 2018) and 50 Acrostic Poems (India: Cyberwit, 2019). Forthcoming are Multiverse, his full-length poetry collection from Clare Songbirds and Pan’s Saxophone, his speculative poetry collection from Weasel Press.