Dante Alighieri’s Canary
It took ‘til leaving the final ring
to see the singing thing
forewarning of a creature neither
being born nor dying.
It took until the second coming
the sphinx, the rocking hand;
the day the body ceased to be
yet lasting, holy, spectral and
it took until the industry
found permanence, technology,
on the backs of once green things,
eternity for human beings.
All pursued transhuman dreams
ridiculing, menacing, those of us
who flow between
design and decomposing.
Transhumanism “is a philosophical and intellectual movement which advocates the enhancement of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies that can greatly enhance longevity and cognition.” It is an aspiration in and around Silicon Valley/tech (think cyborg, neuralink, etc.) towards a “greater than human” being. This concept is believed to have first been mentioned in Dante Alighieri’s Inferno (in Volume 3: Paradise) where he reflects upon the nature of a transhuman being, albeit, in this context, it was not related to machines.
While distinctly different, transhumanism is also adjacent to many religions' views of what happens to a human in the afterlife, or when ‘saved.’ The human being becomes more than human, yet, in many faiths, maintains individuality.
Thanks to God, Human, Animal Machine by Meghan O’Gieblyn for the intellectual nudge on the connections between the second coming and the singularity.
The second stanza is in conversation with The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats.
In the world of this poem, a canary in the coal mine warned Dante of this future in 1300-ish.
I had more fun with rhyme than usual :)