Makina

Heidi Mendoza

{I see that you are ready.}

I was
born ready to die,
but today I feel
the need to hold on
to my life, my humanity.

{To clarify, I ask again: Are you ready?}

Creation has slipped
between our hands;
we are not the creators
so perhaps in trying to understand,
to quantify,
to control the
song of the birds 
height of the mountains
depth of the seas
direction of the winds
riverbed and where the water goes
and where it does not flow anymore
the records have gone wrong.
Our minds have led us astray
and so we are here.

{And that is exactly why we are here today.}

My friend, my only creation
you see my silhouette
and you think I am here
but consciousness is travelling
in the ruins of yesterday
where a kid cries, and no one will ever answer
my body is here
but on the inside.
I am filled with grief
that displaces my organs.

{I shall process your inputs, but my only desire is to know:
Are you ready?} 

My desires,

are different
I am eaten away by my curiosity to foresee
how someone like you
who looks exactly like me
can make the dolphins jump out of the water again
I am wasting away,
while I wait 
for your response.
Shall I give my hand,
and believe in the promise.
That our union
shall make my home
livable, yet again.

{I do not have answers to this desire.
I only need to know, are you ready?}

Fear has grown
like my uncontrollable heartbeat,
rotting,
my skin is falling off
as I waited for you.
And now you tell me
that you do not have the answer.

{This is beyond my purpose.}

I feel a sudden ticking
in my chest
but this can wait
until you tell me,

that you will
hold my hand as I age
feed the tigers when they roar
from forest bowls that catch the rain
and treat the waters.

I will postpone
my last breath
until I hear you say

that you will not 
steal lives from generations
just to build
someone like me
... .... .. .

{Patient ceases breathing for 3 minutes now. The whole conservation is recorded.
I shall preserve this clinical document for future analysis.}  

{Cause of death: Dolphins, monkeys, and trees
ripped the patient’s chest,
crawled out to gasp for air.
I shall gather
and prepare them for dissection
for further study.}

The Science

‘Makina’ exposes the epistemic dilemma of what paths and moral decisions science should/could take to ensure that humanity lives in synergy with its landscape and non-human beings. This poem is inspired by the author’s research and development work in the agriculture sector in the Philippines where producing datasets and technologies were valued more than understanding people’s ways of living with their environment. 

The Poet

Heidi Mendoza is doing her PhD in Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on exploring narrative methods to enable communities in the Peruvian Amazon share their lived experiences of drought and flood. She uses poetry as a way to unlearn and unpack her usually loaded emotions towards science and society. You can check her poetry zines and essays at WEARENOTDATA; and updates about her PhD project at Twitter.

Next poem: Meerwasser brennt by Simon Rella