Remains - Jan 2 2024

 

Remains

Jan 2 2024

What's left behind.

The treasures

tchotchkes

and sentimental objects

no one else much cares for.

A closetful of clothes

that were once actually fashionable.

The journals you kept,

poems

you wrote and collected,

the pen-on-paper letters

you saved for posterity.

That contain the rich interior life

you kept mostly private;

what’s left

of your search for meaning,

need to feel

part of a larger whole.

But now that you're gone

seem bloodless.

Because as you always knew

at least down deep

there is no posterity.

Like the falling tree nobody hears

you won't exist.

And because memory is short

in just a few generations

yours will disappear.

Only ashes will be saved.

Your cremated remains

pressed into diamonds

and sent on a rocket

to outer space,

far enough away

they will never return.

A legacy

that may even outlast earth;

and surely, more permanent than words.

But still, how meaningful?

A dead body

is not you,

your molecules, even less so.

The conceit

of reaching for the stars

is no such thing.

Just an industrial diamond

in the cold vacuum

of the outer galaxy

no one's keeping track of

or possibly could;

lost in the vastness

beyond Mars.

And no one left

who knows that you're there

or would even care

if they did.

From an article in today’s Globe.

Which I felt expressed a kind of desperation:  to make a difference; to find meaning; to leave something important of ourselves behind. We all feel this way. But even heroic measures like this are futile. There is no immortality; no holding back the inevitable process of forgetting. Even fame doesn't help. Attaching oneself to the Roddenberrys and Doohans of the world makes no difference: they are also destined for terminal obscurity.

Ashes of Vancouver Star Trek fan set to go to space alongside famous stars

“Gloria Knowlan never dreamt of boldly going where no one had gone before and was content to leave the journey to the Star Trek actors she came to love, but 12 years after her death, her family has ensured the final frontier will be her ultimate resting place.

It seemed a fitting tribute for the Vancouver mother of eight, whose love of Trek prompted her to collect replica starships and deck out her Christmas tree each year with a homemade alien spacecraft known as the Borg cube, complete with working lights.

A small quantity of Ms. Knowlan’s ashes will be among about 250 capsules of human remains, DNA samples and other memorials set to be launched into space later this month aboard a rocket. Launch organizers are hoping it will wind up about 330 million kilometres from Earth, roughly past the orbit of Mars.

The flight will see Ms. Knowlan, who was 86 at the time of her death, joining some of her favourite stars.

The rocket is also set to carry remains or DNA samples of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry and Original Series stars Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley and fellow Canadian James Doohan. . . . “