MAKE IT SO

Forty years or so ago, I'd guess, the lemon tree next door got planted, its roots bound like the feet of a Chinese maiden. Its branches have become spindly. Its blossoms this year-- bright as ever.

The ghost of the Winchester Mystery House is still out of sight as I sip Tigris and Euphrates tea. With this pause before rain, muted clouds are absorbing thoughts and the yard behind is still asleep. And maybe the preassembled tennis court, with its unplayed games, is where time got unhinged.

There were hay rides not taken then, which could have been. There was that flock of hens that escaped plucking, last seen heading west, faintly clucking. And that Orion sub hunter which crashed on the Moffett Field golf course, not long after my moment of terror. Since then, standard time has been replaced.

Owing its existence to artistic license, there was even a parapet with semaphores flapping, and why not? A little traveling music, please, and a squirt of ink to muddle the cherished media of suspended disbelief.

Incredibly loud and near, a young dog sings. Quite as well as some humans. The opera is somewhere between a yelp and a yawn, or a yowl. It makes sense. And somehow calls up an image.

Oh, yeah. You've seen this box. It has a lever, and there's a trap door. Pull the lever. The door pops up. A hand comes out and pulls the lever back.

Grass, I think, easily becomes a lawn. Because of its attention span.

Weeds we have always with us. Any gardener knows this. They come and go, but grass is staid and sturdy. After it's cut down it spreads. Weeds tend to get choked out. Lawns are defined by machines.

Without machines, you wouldn't be reading this. This is their purpose, not the other way around -- these weeds. But with artificial intelligence, articles and news reports are getting more cheaply written. Before, celery stewed was more gently chewed. Now, fake news is more like fast food.

To end us, and most other life, machines now keep watch on each other, and it's not about being fail-safe. On the contrary, on warning and automatically without chewing or sending anything back to the kitchen, thermonuclear weapons are set to launch. The naked subway sandwich which cannot be regurgitated.

Isn't that definitely a poor meal? It makes me pass an ill wind. But it will solve the population problem.

Or, let's be scientific and take some measurements. How many arable square miles, kilometers, rods, hectares? How many people? Which measure is increasing? And which is not?

Like spring, books are not quite what they used to be. The world that could be sleeps in ordinary backyards. But now, as has been suggested, to mitigate WWIII we should carry on regardless. Plans are being made. Save the women and children for a colony on Mars. Who needs earth? A colony there will be the mother of all projects – bottom line!

If I may say, this seems naive.

Consider the planners of WWIII, who have expressed the doomsday machine now in place. Normal people, calm and rational are they not? Who will say they are insane? So I foresee another iteration on Mars.

Can we have our world and spew green house gasses too? And the world now dormant in backyards everywhere might become what? No one knows exactly. Leaves of grass have been here since before civilization.

What we do know, so far – in the known universe, this world is unique. One world, one life, all of us. Everything. And if we have learned nothing useful from history, we are nonetheless on the verge not of repetition, but of self-extinction. These realities, in all the complexity they entail, deserve our focused attention. And our profound appreciation.

Of course my saying this doesn't make it so. But on the other hand, if it wasn't, I wouldn't.