Johnny’s Message

Johnny’s Message

1) Dear Space-Friend!
Like you I am a boy at school.
And after school I like to play and fish.
Sometimes at night I look up to the stars.
Sometimes at day I climb up a high mountain.

2) And by the mountain runs a creek.
And on its bank I sat me down.
Tree branches waved above me in the breeze.
Out of the moss rose bright the yellow flowers,
their green leaves glistening.

3) I looked into the sparkling water
rushing around sun-warmed rocks
like liquid silver.
The longer I looked the stranger did it seem.
My image looked back to me from the water,
moving on its own like in a dream.
It smiled from behind small waves.
Was it talking to me?

4) Something was talking.
It sounded like a flute.
From where could it come?
Did it arise from the water?

5) A strange plant was sitting on its bank,
stretching its roots into the creek.
But its green leaves outside seemed to move.
Now they spread as big wings of a butterfly.
And now it seemed as if the plant,
having sucked enough water into its body,
spread its wings – and it flew.

6) It fluttered up to me….
its gold eyes gleaming, as if it knew—
it circled and sat down on my knee.
The sounds it made were piped through
its flute-like body
and yet they wafted from far away.
And then I knew
that this thing must have come
from somewhere else.

7) And I began to understand
that it was talking to me.
Could we be friends?
It showed strange signs,
and put them together.
And they made sense.
And what I heard was from another place.
I learnt
The Language of Space.

8) The Being said:
“Thank you, dear Earth-man,
for letting me breathe your air
and drink your water.
And that is all I need.

9) I have come from far,
from a distant star,
which you can see sparkle in the night.
I cannot stay here for long,
so I ask you to listen to my song.

10) We watched your planet for thousands of years,
and still we avoided a visit.
It is a good planet,
blessed with wonders of beauty,
but there is something to it which never occurs
in the whole universe.

11) When you saw me drink water and flutter around,
you knew that I live.
But you see that I use
only what is here in abundance,
open to all.

12) A part of your living things here do as I.
You call them plants.
But they hardly move.
So they can do no harm.
But the other part of your beings here
live by destroying other life.
They have their life from other beings’ death.
You call them animals,
and even you, earthman,
you live partly by killing other beasts.”

13) Here I put in: “What do you want us to do?
Starve or eat grass?
I like to bite into a juicy steak.”

14) The Spaceman said:
“Yes, you could not live
without what you call eating.
But the animals you eat
like also to live.
And other animals want to eat them.
So they all struggle against you,
and you must fight.

15) In olden times you earthmen had to fight
against the mighty saurians,
the dragons of your sagas.
Against the beasts of the wild
you had to become
as cruel as they.

16) But now when nature lies
conquered at your feet,
you seem to keep on fighting
in accustomed aggression –
now against yourselves.
You commit crazy crimes, murders and wars,
and you drift toward death and destruction.

17) We beings from Space never troubled you
and never will thwart you.
We all have avoided your planet
for millions of years.
Look up into the starry sky,
you see beauty and harmony.
In your prayers you look up to heaven,
where you feel the spirit of love.

18) Your planet fell off from this heavenly life
and became the planet of strife.
Prophets and sages have tried to save you.
You burnt and crucified the saints.
But now their predictions’ dreams have come true.
You suddenly entered your “Atomic Age of Space.”

19) Now war would be total annihilation.
Now you could be one of us, as fellow-spacemen,
but you don’t know the way of life of the skies.
You are excluded from cosmic wisdom, the spirit of peace.”

20) I said: “If you are so smart, then tell us your tricks.
Tell us a few of your super-weapons,
which we can use on all the guys whom we don’t like,
and with whom we differ, as they are different from us.
…But if you don’t want to help us,
get going, I have not much time.
I have to go down and play cards with the boys.”

21) He answered: “I too have little time.
What calls me away is a play of cards – with Death.
We cannot live in the vibration of restless tension.
I knew I risked my life, when I came here.
Why should you believe me, a single being?
But if you could listen to the billions of beings
on millions of planets…their ways would persuade you.”

22) I suggested: “Tell the billions of your space-fellows
to learn our language and talk to us.
Maybe mankind will listen
if we see that you fellows
can live in peace.”

23) The Spaceman smiled: “If all hosts of the universe
were to take the trouble of trying
to learn the language of this tiny globe,
what language should they learn to communicate with you?
What is the language of Earth?

24) This little planet has thousands of tongues.
And none of these earth-languages
can be understood by a logical mind of space.
But if we learnt your millions of words,
we would be infected
by your warped way of thinking.
Your words give murder a beautiful name
and call a killer a ‘hero’.

25) So if I gave you the gold of my knowledge
wrapped in the burlap bags of your words,
you would use it to club each other to death.
We will not teach crazy criminals the tricks of destruction.
We can impart the spirit of wisdom
only to those who trust in its grace
and prove this by learning the Language of Space.

26) In this tongue one star sends its rays to a friend
radiating creation of insight sublime;
Wisdom and love over light-years blend,
and the spirits bridge space and knowledge spans time.
The Eternal blesses the cosmos in grace.
The angels sing truth in the Language of Space.”