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| The Guardian, October 27, 2036 |
It’s not really a bog but it’s spongy and weirdly
acidic—this soil lacking oxygen, gasping
waterlogged, quaking with layers of torn down
trees, redone flipped houses, luxury high rise
senior living. A whole storm’s come through
and left my neighborhood full of debris without
the air it needs to decay. A slew of AI billionaires
spend their wealth jacking up real estate prices
while the unhoused veterans camp out next door
in collapsing cars, collecting wood to cook,
old folks sleep in ruined tents. Even the rock
of the moon’s become something else now we know
it’s got the gold of frozen water for data centers.
Tonight I can’t find a ladder to climb my way out
or a solid plank under my feet to stop me
from sinking. I keep thinking about my father.
His whirling brain never stopped solving problems
with numbers—the most vital part of his life—
but he’s been gone ten years already and I have
no valid way to measure what’s been lost
when the whole history of human knowledge,
including every math problem, has been eaten up
by AI, and answers get spouted out in a second.
On a The Daily podcast a math professor cries
confessing his love of numbers and teaching,
telling of a crazy old genius mathematician
and a child math prodigy come together to work
at what they do best. Now all that’s left, Ecclesiastes.
Even if you’re an atheist and don’t believe in
anything but the eloquence of solving problems
there’s still this turning we do in time to die—
this moment when it all clicks in place.
The hole of the loss, the sorrow, my father’s death.
The Dreams. Questions coming again
that can’t be stolen. So much inside me
I still haven’t uncovered—air, and somewhere
a plank laid out like my father so I can stop,
and step out over the rubble.
Karen Marker writes protest poetry and prose from Oakland, California where she finds inspiration by reading the news as seen through the eyes of the wonderful poets that NVN features. She is honored that her work has been included here as well as in a number of other places like The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, WordPeace, Calul, and the Kent State University May 4 Special Collections and Archives. Her book of flash memoir and poetry Beneath the Blue Umbrella is available through Finishing Line Press and explores resilience in face of family trauma.
