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The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily
[encore] 454: On a Spaceship Somewhere, Long After Empire's Collapse by Jesús I. Valles
00:05:42
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- [00:00]
Dr. Horton Representative
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- [00:31]
Elizabeth and Ethan Finkelstein
For 140 years, MultiCare has been in Washington prioritizing long term solutions, partnering with local communities and expanding access to care. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@mycare.org hey there.
- [00:48]
American Public Media Representative
It's major. As we take a look back at the Slowdown's deep well of episodes, we're revisiting some standout moments from past hosts. Today, we're going into the Vault to bring you an episode from Tracy K. Smith, one of the voices that helped shape the Slowdown into what it is today. This is just one of the many special selections from our archives.
- [01:18]
Tracy K. Smith
I'm Tracy K. Smith, and this is the Slowdown. The very first stories of the supernatural that spoke to me were Bible stories. Maybe what's so interesting about the tales of Christ's miracles is that they're so analog. No space vehicles, no bleeping communication devices, just mountains, water, ancient dusty cities. Nevertheless, those gospels are tales of visitation from beyond our galaxy. Growing up in the church, there were so many prohibitions on what I was supposed to believe. Dinosaurs were problematic as they threatened to infringe upon the validity of the Bible's creation story. And if aliens reached us, wouldn't they throw a wrench into God's plans for the Second Coming? Being an obedient child, I allowed a number of walls to go up inside my imagination. Now I love the idea of a multiverse where angels and aliens are fast at work in dimensions beyond our own. In every source I've found, from out of body experiences to past life regressions to the Gnostic gospels once deemed heretical, we humans are unique in the universe, not because we're so advanced, but rather because we're restricted by the very human traits of fear, ignorance, and greed. Every single system we erect perpetuates these very same flaws. But the message from the stars is simple. It doesn't have to be this way. I hope we humans might change of our own volition. Barring that, I'm game for celestial intervention. Today's poem is on a spaceship somewhere long after Empire's collapse by Jesus A. Valles. Somehow, even in this future, amidst motherboards and cast aside MREs, every cool whip and Country Crock tub is still deceitful, more mystery than promise, housing nothing like its original cargo, but instead salsa and the week's beans. Even with the stars close enough to kiss the swerve heat of celestial bodies, Pegadito, every Danish butter cookie tin is still stocked with the seamstress's tools, her threads, thimbles and every needle that ever kept our miseries mended, and right above the cold steel of the bolted doors, the same thing as always, a horseshoe wrapped in red ribbon, a wreath of garlic, a picture of Son Hudas, and that gilded rendition of the Last Supper she ordered from the Home Interiors catalog. We are inside a leviathan waltzing with every lover. Moon, Jupiter's neglected and Earth is a distant story we are told before bed, right before she blesses us, and every morning still smells like huevos conchorizo and the Avon spray she loves most. Once on Earth someone told my Tia Kame, go back to your country, which she took to mean go home. And if the sky is the thing that follows us everywhere, she thought, if the vast black blue saw me born, then the sky is my home and every star is every place I've come from. Long after the Empire was no more, it was all the aunties who led every expedition, just like on Earth. It was all the TIAs who looked at an unknown and threw their heads back, cackling as they soared into the sky, showing the children, all of us, where exactly we belonged.
- [05:58]
American Public Media Representative
The Slowdown is a production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. This project is also supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. On the web@arts.gov to get a poem delivered to you daily, go to slowdownshow.org and sign up for our newsletter. Find us on Instagram @downdownshow and bluesky.downdownshow.org.
- [06:31]
Elizabeth and Ethan Finkelstein
From Emmy Award winning series this Old House comes a new podcast, this Old House Radio Hour. We tell stories of the artisans, builders and visionaries that keep the spirit of craftsmanship alive. We also uncover America's forgotten homes with cheap old houses. Hosts Elizabeth and Ethan Finkelstein places with history, soul and price tags that seem too good to be true. Listen and follow this Old House Radio Hour from LAS Studios and American Public Media. Wherever you get your podcasts.