Mandragore

By Joan d’Arc

"Wake up…

the world is about you…"

the mating call of the messenger probe

cracked the silent blue

in all directions

"wake up… the world is about you…"

the machine eye of a 5b sector sentinel

scanned its quadrant

as through the crusty soil poked

the ecstatic crown of a mandrake

"wake up… the world is about you…"

the sentinel rang the mother ship

for birthing instructions:

"orange-red berries like small tomatoes"

went the description

"earth pregnant again with native automata"

went the word on the wind

"god seed and animal earth"

went the legend

above the din of antediluvian plastics

thrashing in the solar squall

the shrieks of mandrakes

torn from sustenance

"by order of the gods, do not

touch the white-green flowers

of the Mandragore"

A great rain fell for days and nights

and into weeks

the formless senseless things

resembled turnips

"boy or girl?"

said one bot to the Finder

"If you touch it you will die"

by day its limbs

jerked with father voltage

by night its forehead

beamed with mother knowledge

inside grew a virtual memory bank

the size of a planet

more mandrakes came

they came at night

they came in the wee hours of the morning

they came demanding their freedom

and the messengers went away

Mandragore, wake up the world!