In the Next Life, Canto I, stanzas 58-79 revised

So Project SIRE’s delivered as replanned,
with little notice given of the birth,
and few will know for what the letters stand:
Survival In Rejuvenated Earth.

A couple pesky journalists protest,
but most have been conditioned to such waste.
What’s underwater can’t hold interest
with human copulation more the taste.

The founders know, however, that they can’t
rely indefinitely on their source.
They’ve built a most impressive cart, I’ll grant.
To pull it, though, they’ll need a mighty horse.

You see the rub: They have no guarantee
that they’ll have something to which to respond
unless they do what seems (at least, to me)
unthinkably immoral and beyond.

It seems that they can save what they esteem
if the event they’re certain is a threat
occurs before the light falls on their scheme.
To douse a flame, it must be burning yet.

Would it be right to throw a little spark
onto the pyre? Would they be justified?
Would it be worth some centuries of dark,
a hidden candle’s shelter to provide?

That someone would consider such an act
reminds me of the power of a thought.
It struggles for existence when attacked.
That’s animal behavior, I was taught.

Now, don’t infer a lack of self-control.
They know the cost and what they can afford.
Like you and me, they calculate the toll.
Like us, they measure risk and seek reward.

For all incentive systems to perform,
we need something to want or to eschew.
With critters, pain and pleasure are the norm.
As humans, we have moral values, too.

When one of these yet ill-defined things grows
to where some feel they lack the strength to opt,
we still blame those who hold it, for they chose
to let it move them, and they could have stopped.

But stop they not, and after some delay,
a few of them drop hesitating hints.
Some others listen; some express dismay.
They all come to, but guess what happens since.

Before they get a chance to try their hand
at tricking politicians to the brink,
a comet is discovered that will land
on Earth. We’re dying sooner than we think!

The founders are ecstatic when they hear.
They hadn’t really planned the whole thing through,
and this way, they’ve no punishment to fear.
The comet’s dust cloud will be cleaner, too.

The comet won’t receive its spotter’s name.
Astronomers have simplified that job,
though some suspect it’s merely out of shame
at having one that sounds so like ‘Hail, “Bob”!’

A letter and a numeral have we
to catalogue this ball of rock and ice.
The ‘J’ is for some mythic deity;
the ‘1’ must be an ordinal device.

So, will the founders have an easy go?
Not if someone can change the comet’s course.
The loop includes some founders, so they know
‘twill take a lot of raw atomic force.

The nation-states can scrape up some of that,
but to be sure, they’ll want to send it all,
and even though each power’s thought a rat
by others in the club, they make the call.

Accordingly, a plan is drawn in haste
to gather all the nukes from ’round the globe.
Some weather satellites will be displaced.
As well, a would-be astronomic probe.

I guess the founders aren’t so off-the-hook.
It’s probable that J-1 will be beat.
If they’re to clinch the deal, it starts to look
like they are back to practicing deceit.

It won’t be easy, too, despite their pull.
A billion eyes are watching every move.
Not only is this campaign wonderful;
we’re goners should it unsuccessful prove.

The founders in the program are but ten.
This ploy will need a larger enterprise.
They cannot try recruiting strangers when
the payment would be everyone’s demise.

Once more, our group has to manipulate
another one. The present set of dupes
can share their goal: most lives to extirpate.
Once more, our plot jumps through some flaming hoops.

©2010, 2016 Louis A. Merrimac