—Darwin
He meant, of course, origin. What strains from what framework of bones. The form the giraffe bends down to the dirt same as the elephant, binding our foreign, numbered weight. And from the war of nature comes the production of a higher animal. Say from the war of nature comes what we need— a machine more than man. What mind wouldn’t want this? Clean tactic, poor boys of America safe before the screen. My friend–caught, in Jalula by an IED—not quite right still. Who am I, then, to demand a higher order. There is grandeur, Darwin says, in this view of life. The new technology that keeps our Global Hawk air-strong thirty-four long hours. Improving the real bird’s endurance by the day. So art plays nature’s second part. Coiled, darker than black, the engine resembles sci-fi’s most gleaming machinations. Death-helmet, snake pit, asteroid-flung. Endless forms most beautiful. It looks ready for space, some thicker atmosphere Over Gaza men call drones zanana—nagging wife. Slang imitating sound. How hungry language becomes. Thy soul was like a star—They are as gentle as zephyrs, blowing below the violet— Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night—Always we want more. Catch up, fiction. We are already our most gruesome design. Operators, in their padded chairs, in low, tan Midwestern buildings, cannot hear the buzzing—these new birds make. Bangana—Patshtu for wasp— sing us a song we can fall down into. Sing something decent, something far off and sweet. We are, we now know, made from star stuff. Who wouldn’t feel god-like, so hovering, so composed.