A Series of Autonoetic Simulations

The ordinary postindustrial
Citizen glances at occluded stars
And subitises like any infant

Recognizing a small set of objects
As being something more than singular,
Or, if the sky is unusually dark

For this light-and-haze besotted era,
Maybe engages the approximate
Number system to note more stars this night

Than there were the other night, than there are
Most nights. And really, what else do you need
Beyond the evolved numerosity

Common to humans and many species?
Leave the algorithms to your machines.
There’s no call for sky-watching anymore.

The human brain’s halfway to retirement
From its weird and temporary career
As the warehouse of shared information

Weaving together the generations.
In the future, you can be beasts again,
Tame as hens, clueless about the systems

That sustain the conditions you live in.
That’s what happened the first time, wasn’t it?
There were creatures who understood their world

And remade that cosmos to their liking.
Now the universe they generated
Expands without them. Somewhere there are gods,

Or daemons, or extraterrestrials,
Or at least the dim descendants of them,
Clueless, having completely forgotten.