Mr. Spock died

Mr. Spock has died
He was part of my childhood
I’m sure he was for many, many people
That’s why he got so much press
Dr. McCoy, “Bones”, is already dead
As is Scotty
The rest of them are pretty up there age-wise
Inevitably one day
Captain Kirk will die
Uhuru and Chekov will also die
We can make bets on who will be first
But before long
A mere blip in the scheme of all times
The whole cast of Star Trek will pass
It will be even more an artifact of time than it is now

Much like watching classic films from the 30s
Every single person in this movie is dead
Every extra in a crowd scene
Even the children
Like Shirley Temple are dead and Mickey Rooney is dead
If there are cats or dogs in a scene
You know those suckers are long gone
Lassie is dead and Secretariat is dead

Many contemporaries of mine are dead
Even peers of people much younger than me
George and John are dead
Soon Paul and Ringo will follow
And both my parents will be dead
And both yours
Though my mother hangs on
Longer than seems humanly possible
In a state of living death
That I can’t see as preferable

In the not too distant future
Relative to the solar system
Everyone on the planet now will be dead
Not all at the same time
Unless some catastrophic event occurs
Which is entirely possible
Everyone including you will be dead
Replaced by new beings, their descendants
And possibly life forms from elsewhere
Who may decide to colonize us
At some point earth might even be dead
In its presently habitable form

Most of us will be dead and anonymous
Like all the early colonists and pilgrims
The ones who didn’t write or become governor
An inventor or war hero
Who just did their jobs and lived
Eventually died and probably aren’t even
Buried in the touristy colonial cemeteries
The slave owners are as dead as their slaves
Well, not all
We know slavery still exists
But the cotton plantation Civil War era
Some folks will be remembered
Like Clark Gable or Martin Luther King
But no one who ever knew them will be alive
Were they anything like
How we remember them?

 

Illustration © George Panagopoulos

Illustration © George Panagopoulos

 

Sue Savoy has been a popular regular at Boston’s Cantab Lounge for the last decade and featured all over New England, including Cantab, Tapestry of Voices, Emerson College, Boston University, Worcester, Manchester, New Hampshire and Portland, Maine.

George Panagopoulos is an Artist, Writer, and Comedian from Worcester, MA.