homeopathic in poetry

If water actually had memory
it’d overwhelmingly only
remember the dirt from whence it came.
If the dirt had memory,
it would remember us.
Nothing inanimate has memory
even the works carved into rocks
or burned into computer magnets
that’s not memory
that’s just code
to be translated back into memory
by a living mind.
Water can’t remember one millionth of a thing
that was once inside it
only we can do that.
For better or for worse,
only we can be shaped by such a little trace.

You also have to consider that
nostalgia’s a rusty bear trap.
Gnaw off your leg and stumble away,
lessened but alive,
or die there in its unforgiving maw.
Sometimes we have to just
rip off parts of ourselves to keep moving
and that’s okay too
sometimes.
But here’s the thing:

When our cities have rusted away,
only the frozen poop of rich dilettantes
who pretended to climb Mount Everest will remain.
There are hills of it there now
at the base camps
the shit of millionaires pretending at heroism
it is all that will outlive us
physically, anyway.
The frozen feces of the born into privilege
playing pretend
is all the aliens will find
at least that’s what it looks like now.
Unless we can change.

Because our legacy is memetic.
What we say and do
are what will outlive us as our souls,
even if we’re shot dead for speaking,
they’ll endure.
We can choose what will endure
by doing the right thing
at least once in a while.
Maybe at least
one part per million.

We disappear into the solution of culture,
diluted down to almost nothing
but even more powerful
as trace amounts in the memory of the sea.
Sort of like homeopathy
if homeopathy
weren’t con-man hibbity-jibbity.

It may be bad medicine in the physical
but in our hearts
let us be good memes
even if they cut us down for it.
What the hell,
especially if they cut us down for it.
We can cure this water
if we really want it.