On this planet earth, humanity has conquered it in completeness. We occupy every landmass save a few that we have decided to allow to remain isolated from colonialism, and our conquest. For these spaces however, it is only a matter of time. Humanity has a growth rate which will eventually coat the planet in our species. We have removed ourselves from natures forest fires, to curb the rapid population increase of people. Now exists vaccines that help our bodies eradicate disease from having hold. There is bountiful food that is genetically engineered to grow faster and more plentiful than is natural. Natural predators of humanity have been removed allowing us to run rampant across the world, that is besides ourselves. Part of our stellar species identity is to be predators of each-other, and in many of these conflicts the toll destroys our world as well as ourselves.
Despite this, there are small spaces that still exist where we can find something that few now have the opportunity to personally define for themselves. Emptiness. True space, where one can look out and see nothing of human control. When you can open your ears and the sound of cars is absent. As the sun falls, you can look up at the stars; you can view the night sky in the glory it was designed for. There is an enemy to this. An opponent that can be defined in a new term using old words. Modern Colonialism. What could also be called the Present Manifest Destiny. Finding places that are still in balance with nature and flocking to it. This does not mean that these places were not necessarily occupied, but that they still were in harmony. People live in and by the land in a way that both thrived. These places have yet to become metropolises and the freedom of the land is still intact.
Refraining from being one who is completely opposed to change, and ignorant of the evolving world, just know that is not my position. You see, I gave you the background of the world that we exist in. The inevitable problem that will ensue, as humanity grows too big for her home. Some day we will run out of land so we will seek the sky. We will build to the heavens until there is no heavens. Wispy clouds will be our new homes and will live like angels in brightly lit spheres of technology that define future. At least, that is how I imagine it.
To forge the path forward rather than dwell in the past, my creative work will go through three Acts. Act one will detail much of my childhood home. As previously described there will be open skies, vast prairie, and the only sound is the wind rushing between your ears. The next Act will then move on to the concrete jungle that will inevitably invade my home. Skyscrapers will dominate the landscape, and the painted sunsets will be covered in smog and smoke. Smells will be arid and escape unlikely. Finally, the finale, will be in the vacuum of space. Why? Besides the fact space is freaking cool and I have always wanted to find an opportunity to write about it. Well because it is related to where we began, except it is the actual embodiment of quiet, and uninterrupted beauty. It also because it is one of the hopeful trajectories that humanity can pray for. That we make it to the final frontier and that we do not become a forgotten, extinct species, that’s only mark on the universe was destroying our home.
Act 1
Empty fields and golden grass offer more than one would originally assume. If one were to drive across the Midwest, and the west of the United States, their view would be assaulted by overwhelming abundancy of nothing. There is nothing to see. No Mountains, no trees, sometimes there might be a river, or grazing cattle, but for the most part, it is just empty. Generally, the opinion is that the parts of these drives are boring and take forever. Why? Because there is nothing to look at. No cliff faces to drive, or ravines and canyons to wind through. No big cities in sight, just grass.
In this portion of the United States is the biggest small state there is—Wyoming. There is nothing there for the majority of it. Now there are the Tetons in the Northwest, and Yellowstone even norther, but other than that, it is all prairies. What is a prairie though?
Prairie – A thing of unwavering and timeless beauty that displays silence through a visual. Its rolling hills and grasses wave back to anyone who looks on as a gentle breeze blows through. The scent of clean air fills and opens the lungs and cures the ailments of any with its pure intention. In winter, the grass turns to a subtle tan and brown, and snow fills the spaces between its long blades. Cold tundra is the transformation prairie goes under in the north. Without the cover of trees, the gentle breeze changes to brisk wind that bites and burns the skin. Putting on the disguise of a harsh and cruel landscape it still cannot hide its enchanting tranquility. Prairie is one of the few places on earth that remains very much untouched from human infiltration. Few caretakers roam this land with their livestock and their homesteads. They manage the prairie and have a relationship with it that the rest of the world has seem to have forgotten. We can live with the land without destroying it. Retreating to the original principle that we depend on the world and that it depends on us.
In a prairie nothing blocks the sunshine from kissing your skin. The skies are open and a brilliant blue almost every day. There is never smog or gas fumes to be breathed in. Sounds of the city do not invade your sleep at night. No, all though there is nothing–there is something. Peace surrounds you and maybe a little anxiety too. For in the prairie there is no place to hide. You are out in the open, and alone with only yourself.
Mournings
When you look out your front window what do you see?
Are there cars zooming past?
Are there people in packs crowding the sidewalks all with a place to be?
What do you smell when you take your first steps outside? Is it smoke?
Maybe food cooking, being sold by vendors on the street corners?
What sounds fill your ears?
Horns honking, doors slamming, engines rumbling,
Not me.
When I take my first look outside, I see grass stretching out for miles.
I see the sun beginning to rise in the east,
just beginning to peak over the hills filling the outstretched fields with a celestial glow.
The first breath in the morning is clean and crisp,
chilling my lungs as it fills my chest.
My ears stretch open to catch bird songs and the whispering wind
The whispering wind, what a wonderful thing. Sometimes it can be more like yelling especially from the place I adhere from, the prairie of Wyoming. Some days it may shout at you all day leaving you huddled in your home while it beats against the siding and rattles your fence. But the wind, is a part of the land. It is what makes the long, Golden grass waive back at you when you stare out across its ocean. An ocean that is also full of life and wonders, hiding under the protection of its waves.
Wind– You get a bad name that is for sure. People seem to lack understanding of your nature. They find your presence at most times unpleasant unless you have reduced yourself to that of a lowly breeze. It is hard to see your brilliance when you are too busy messing up our hair and burning our cheeks. Damages to houses, buildings and signs have been accredited to you, what a vandal. For along with damage and messy hair you restrict us to our homes. We do not want to spend time in nature when you have decided to announce your presence as well. How much good also comes with you though that people cannot see? Who else can single handedly disperse seeds and pollen across the landscape bringing new life all around us? Nothing else but the wind. Storms are brought to dry lands with rain by the wind. Birds use you too travel vast distances to ensure their survival. However, above all, you have battled valiantly to preserve nature from human influence. For where you blow the hardest, dissuades our colonization. Wind you are not simply a creator or a destroyer, but also the eternal preserver.
Wind and Prairie create the golden, flowing hills of the plains that one can look on and find no end. No breaks, no roads, no cars, just fields. Suburbia has yet to invade and this precious spot-on planet earth remains relatively untouched. Sure, there are ranches and farms, but they cultivate with the land. Their livelihood and the land are connected in such a way that they must be true stewards to honor their title and ancestry. To preserve the land and their way of life.
Now, the end is surely coming. Someday when I look upon where those fields used to be there will be skyscrapers. There will be bustling streets and honking cars. People yelling, and people selling. Neon signs will light up the night and you can no longer see the stars. Wind will be blocked by towering buildings and dense air will be left to sit and weigh on the lungs of the inhabitants. For now, though, all I see is gold. Gold, and a blue sky, and that is what matters.
Empty Writings
As I write this, I have things to consider,
People are moving here, why though I wonder,
The weather is terrible and there is little to see,
But nothing stands out, which is why they flee
To the plains of the west where the storms gather,
Raining thunder, hail, blowing wind asunder,
I suppose that is the attraction to people’s curiosity,
What emptiness feels like is out of their context,
They move unknowing, they ruin what they seek,
The fields and farms, ready to seed,
To feel the land and plains, roaming people can’t understand,
Instead, they move here destroying the love of the land
Act 2
One hundred years in the future… the year is 2120. There are tales that the world used to be empty. Pictures that show safaris and forest. Books that talk about mountains and beaches. Even from the boring metropolis of Cheyenne, Wyoming, there was this thing called plains. They say you could look out and never see the end of grass or sunshine. That can’t be the place I’m from. Cheyenne has no hills or grass. It has buildings. Lots and lots of buildings. As I walk even, through rain that burns, I can’t even see the sky.
I smell smoke. They said by this time, everything would be better. Energy would be cleaner—the world would be paradise, from the advancements made by mankind. Hate got in the way though. People never agree, policies were never made, and now we lay dormant. Dormant in a stinky and smoky concrete jungle. The vines are streetlights, and the trees are skyscrapers. Cars got faster, but our lungs got heavier. Life got heavier. There was no sun over the skyline for the smog was too thick. Even from my small apartment on the 74th floor, I still cannot see the sky. Smiles were frequently shown. What was there to smile about? Escape was impossible. A weekend get-away was not an option. There was no cottage in the mountains to visit. No beach-house, no tree to pitch a tent under. No, from one direction to the other, there was nothing else.
The Never-Ending City
Buildings stretch as far as the eye can see, then even farther,
Lights and smoke blot out the sky, are there even stars?
Or are the stars the innumerable fluorescent squares that climb the sky to heaven?
At the top, heaven is a corporate desk with walls made of screens,
Screens that show lily pads, and a coursing stream,
Imitations cannot bring a smile though,
It brings a frown to see what you can’t have,
The coolness of the water no longer exists,
Neither do the frogs hopping between pads,
Their ribbits forever silenced outside of tanks
Even in these end times though, one must look for some beauty. To do so, one must truly redefine what is thought of as beautiful. For me, I find a pristine beauty in books. Not the electronic ones we all have on our screens, but real ones. Ones with thick, colored pages that show a time before. When I read them, I see how lovely everything used to be. Endless colors and biting breezes. Thunder clouds that swirl and build, to crack lightning and shower rain. A place where lovers could walk through fields of green in springtime with only scent of fresh flowers to accompany them. I see this on the pages before me, and there I see beauty.
Act 3
Spaceship earth. A theory that we would outgrow and corrupt our planet. A theory that came to pass and now we reside in the vacuum of space. Not all of us of-course. For the seats of this ship cost a price. Ninety-Nine percent of humanity remained to perish with our old planet while us, the wealthy, cleanly escaped. Project Odyssey had been in development for years, generously funded by shareholders across the old world. Fifteen years it has been since we set course in search of a new home. The year being 2209. Now here I sit, staring outside my pressurized window gazing at the stars. Till Odyssey became my home, I do not remember seeing stars, what would seem like luxury, now feels like a prison.
Infinity
Endless spheres of fire and endless space between,
The silent burn of time resides in this space,
Aging the universe more and more,
Home’s circle some of the spheres,
Home to many,
Some born there,
Others arrived,
Whenever someone arrived a timer appeared,
A timer on a bomb,
This bomb always went off
A place suitable for life. Words that could not have seemed sweeter. However, I would miss this place. Not the cramped quarters, or the less than flavorful nutrition bars. No, what I would miss most is emptiness. A distant grandfather had passed down books in our family. Books that he would read in his tiny apartment on the 74th floor before he made his millions in invention. Some of these books were ancient tales of adventure. Others however, were entries in a journal of a grandfather much before us. He wrote of vast empty prairies, and fields of gold. Striking storms and vibrant scents.. Places that were so void of humanity that they felt empty. The stars were my fields of gold.
Lundy's Thoughts 