Cosmic Relativity



If bees spoke, and perhaps they can,
What scheme would form their master plan?
Would their brief buzz and short-lived lives
Revolve on pollen, queens and hives,
With ‘bee concerns’ made paramount,
And human lives of no account?
And if bees spoke, and if we heard
The cosmic view all bees preferred,
Our first aim wouldn’t be to learn,
I’ll bet we’d scoff, detract and spurn
The fact that bees think they’re supreme.
We’d claim their view a haughty dream,
And brand their faith of centuries;
A creed, still taught to newborn bees,
As worthless, false; a fantasy
Based solely on how all bees see.

So curious I find this thought ---
It could apply to all we’re taught.
For mankind’s guilty of this too;
Our truth’s framed by our point of view.
If so, our world’s theology;
Our science, facts, philosophy
Are theories that are all man-made;
All frauds once conjured, then conveyed.
Then too, our universities,
Our grade-points, books and law degrees
Are vain awards and not of worth,
And no clue to the truth on earth.
If so, the view the bees might give
Can’t be defamed --- it’s relative.
And man then, is just like the bees;
Our hives, concrete and steel cities,
And where bees seek the stamen, ripe,
We’re drawn by infommercial hype.
While honeycombs and flowered hills
They gently groom with insect skills,
Our kind, who claim to own the earth,
Destroy and waste its precious worth.
And why not? We’re the biggest beasts --
And bumblebees...the very least.
"How vain these stinging pests!" we’d shout,
"To theorize and leave humans out.
"How ignorant each little bee;
Ten thousand eyes and still can’t see!
"But buzz around like they know all,
Not once realizing just how small
And insignificant their kind.
"What ‘insect-centric,’ little minds!"
If that’s the way, though, bees explain
Their universe with their small brains,
Can we be sure, with frontal lobe,
We’ve flawlessly assessed our globe?
Perhaps too, bugs are all we are;
Our Milky Way, a mayonnaise jar
With crude holes punched into the lid;
The pets of some celestial kid!
A kid who sits in thoughtful state,
For eons tries to contemplate
The human ‘bugs’ he has interred,
And wonders, though it seems absurd,
Just how these beings in his glass,
Construe themselves. He sighs, "Alas,
If men could speak, perhaps I’d find
If they have gleaned the grand design."
He gives our jar a shake or two,
Then tilts the glass for better view,
And thinks, "What would these ‘men-bugs’ say
Of karma or of judgment day?"
He sets the jar back on the shelf,
But one last question asks himself:
"If men spoke, and perhaps they can,
What scheme would form their master plan?"

With that thought lightly in his mind,
He skips off in the hope to find
Another world or galaxy
To ponder how they came to be.
And then, just up above his head:
A dwarf star; old but glowing red.
He tiptoes toward the dying star,
Uncaps his scrubbed-out pickle jar.
But when the star’s within his grasp,
Above he sees a shadow pass.
It grows, descends, blots out the sky!
A flash of pain --- the boy-god dies.

"That’s gross!" a being shouts above;
Its hand wrapped in a Kleenex glove.
It calls out as it swabs the splat,
"Hey, honey, will you look at that:
The second roach I’ve seen today.
"Next time let’s buy that new bug spray!"
The bug, wrapped in its tissue shroud,
Gets flushed; no dirge, no tears, no crowd.
Just circles round the swirling bowl,
To vanish down the plumbing hole.
The toilet fills, he asks and stares,
"Hey, Hon, you think somebody cares
That I just squished that dirty bug?"
"Outside --- they’re fine," she gives a shrug.
"Inside, they’ll share the same grim fate:
We’ll swat, stomp or exterminate!
"It’s not like you’re some murderer!
"Bugs have no souls. Of that, I’m sure!"
"I know," he willingly gave in,
"But I was kind of thinking then
That bugs might be misunderstood;
In their own way, might do what’s good.
"Our world is narrowly defined
In terms devised by our own minds.
"Who knows then what role roaches play
In karma or on Judgment Day?"
She rolled her eyes and shook her head,
"C’mon, it’s late. Let’s get to bed."
"You’re right," he grinned, "I need some sleep."

But in his dreams that night would creep
A single, reoccurring thought:
That all he’d learned; all he’d been taught
Were naive lies, for none could know
From history, books, or TV show,
Just how the cosmos works its way.
She woke and heard him, sleeping, say:
"If roaches spoke; perhaps they can...
"What scheme might form their master plan?"