Murmurs of Earth
Oct 11 2021
I am backing up my computer
as I have many times been urged.
As if my work will last,
provide me with a legacy
and a sense of greater meaning;
that I will be remembered
not forgotten,
that the gift of life was earned
not squandered.
This illusion of permanence
we try so hard to sustain
and find so reassuring.
As if paper doesn't burn.
As if vinyl doesn't break
tape degrade
CDs corrupt.
As if we should place our trust
in the security of the cloud.
And then I think of tablets
fired from clay
that have survived millennia
buried in the sand,
from grand proclamations
to debts owed and paid.
How the ancient ways persist.
And how, if anything is forever
it's still taxes and death.
And remind myself of Voyager
sailing out beyond the planets
in the silent depths of space.
That it carries on its battered skin
a disc of copper and gold,
inscribed with humanity
and signals from mother earth.
The Beatles and Beethoven's Fifth,
crickets, frogs, chimps.
Mathematics, DNA
the Golden Gate Bridge.
A chorus of human voices,
a fetus
and family portrait.
How we strive
for immortality,
yet fall so woefully short.
I borrowed the title of this poem. Murmurs of Earth is a book by Carl Sagan on the origin of Voyager's interstellar message. (I've read that it's out of print, however, and difficult to get.)
Although this poem wasn't supposed to be about Voyager. The instigating idea was this illusion of permanence, as well as the irony that the most reliable medium is the ancient and simple technology of firing clay. And that all of our vast libraries – whether they be on paper, tape, CD, or digital data – will likely perish long before those buried tablets ever did.
Things get more complicated, and we often think that newer is better. But then the format changes, the old devices are retired, and suddenly your treasured VHS tapes are unplayable, the microfiche has faded into a vague blue blur, and there are no longer any machines that can read floppy discs.
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