Already Upon Us

Life’s real baby is what’s next.

Mind is still coming to grips

With chaos in prediction,

And some human languages

Sagely leave out future tense,

But the lives underneath this

And the lives underneath them

Have been working on what’s next

Since life had lives to learn from.

One physicist, Rovelli,

Goes so far as to locate

The birth of meaning itself

In selection for cells

That could predict directions

Resources were more likely

To be reached—information

More important than other

Information is meaning,

Which would imply that meaning

Is valuable prediction

That gets you stuff for living.

Certainly sounds like something

A physicist might expect

To explain biology,

Physicists being the lords

Of prediction for humans,

Priest roots deep in ziggurats.

Fair enough. Life’s prediction,

Or the refinement of same,

However meaning’s defined.

So what’s next? Can you predict

What’s already upon us?

Eh? Need and want. Always next.