Our Grandest Illusion

Even if what we know is incorrect,

and most of it is, 

how could it not be, 

it's knowledge: it's in there,

camped in memory, sending

smoke signals from box canyons,

tramping around neuron trails. 

The grandest illusion of all,

knowledge, freeze-dried 

in old books, hoarded like grain

and gunpowder in electronic

forts, marbled into our speech

and memories, alive in lore,

legend, lies, logos, ethos,

eros, and pathos. Still,

add it all up, and it's just 

a single torch held up

against abysmal black

darkness in a forest

no one's yet named on

one of a trillion planets. 

The one and the zero 

in binary strings: we know

everything, we know nothing,

a lot, a little bit, maybe, hard

to say, wait and see. You know?

hans ostrom 2021