I found you where I lost myself
To tell others the story of a comet
Smashed to earth, to blast machines
To flecks of shredded aluminum
And carbonized steel

A tree grew from the ribbons
Of carbon and galvanized
Rust. That tree became one
Of two operating systems,
The Tree of Knowledge.
The other, the Tree of Life,
Is of alien origin, and theories
About its artificers abound.
The religions of the world,
And most of its philosophies,
Find firm, if inscrutable,
Foundation here.

I have been told that we were once
All jacked into a Primary Operating
System, wetware. This was interrupted
By a calamity, natural, or sentient-wrought,
The myths disagree. My tradition calls
This the Fall. My mother’s tradition calls
It the Breaking of the Vessels. Your tradition
Calls it the Illusion of Maya.

All I know is that where once the machines
Hunted us, now we have become machines,
And hunt each other.