It wins a race
against itself
on my bathroom floor,
sliver of a creature,
house centipede
with too many legs,
hairy footed,
creepy in its
coordination, genius
of its own navigation.
It is automation
in miniature,
able to skim
relative miles of tile,
dust, dip, crack,
a marbled plain —
in seconds, a miracle
of self direction.
What a way
to start the day.
Last week sometime,
I read a headline,
in the Times, something
about a three-legged
lion crossing
an African river
of crocodiles —
click here
to find out why.
I didn’t, caring
only that it succeeded,
that it didn’t need
to take some
calculated gamble
we attribute
to other animals,
rather, it knew
itself, understood
what it could
accomplish, and
did. Then
somewhere in
New Zealand,
the transmission
tower that collapsed,
outages skidding across
whole regions
in an infrastructure
fail. Three out of
four of its legs
unbolted, men
and media scurrying
to place blame,
cover up where
possible (as if
dysfunction
so powerful
can be hidden)
no one really
looking at process,
investigation,
how the thing
got there to begin
with, how it came
to be undone.
Meanwhile, an insect
with less than
a raisin brain,
manages hundreds
of legs at once,
and a disabled lion
successfully survives
a river of teeth
and angry hippos.
And here we are, yes?
Tripping over
our own two legs?
Disassembling what
we have built,
unthinking, over-
thinking, dismantling,
falling? Are you
understanding the irony
yet? The oxymoron
of ourselves?
Go ahead and laugh.
There’s a bug
running up your pantleg.
Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, copyright June 25, 2024, all rights reserved
Revised June 27. 2024
Inspired by this LinkedIn post by Dr. Jason Price and this New York Times article.
Posted in Katherine's Coffeehouse
