Meditation #5

All of our beloved machines gathered at the old farm
and dumped all their waste lubricants
into a pit lined with plastic sheets.

Whee, they said.  The old swimming hole!

Our cars looked back at us
from where we’d parked them on the fire road
and sneaked off to join in the fun,
humming more lightly along
now that they didn’t have to carry us.

What do we do now, we said,
stuck up here on the hill
without our own pots to piss in?

We’re walking home to see what’s left.
If there is nothing, we tell each other,
maybe we can start over.

But — no machines this time!
Simple stuff only.  Not even a lever,
a wheel, an inclined plane. We’re suspicious
of our own joints now, afraid
that they may leave us when unattended.

There’s going to be a lot of lying around.
A lot of thinking.  A lot of looking
at the sky, at the unmanned planes
flitting among the bemused eagles.