Futurology

I cannot break free from these iron stars.
I want the raspberry paw-pads of the fox,
but here are only claws, the Crab, the Scorpion,
great shining signs that slide across the sky.

I want the wisdom ignorant of wars
and the soft key that opens all the locks.
I want the touch of fur, the slant of sun
deep in a golden, slotted, changing eye.

O let there be no signs!   Let fall the bars
and walls be moss-grown, scattered rocks.
Let all the evil we have done be done,
and minds lie still as sunlit meadows lie.


"Futurology" is from Incredible Good Fortune,
Shambhala, 2006, © 2006 by Ursula K. Le Guin.