Scout (Part 1) - Joe Ficklin

Some say the singularity / Will be the end of human kind A sideways shift from humanity / And interface with machine mind Cyborg bodies flesh and steel / To tackle all of Earth's extremes And show us if the heart can feel / When fueled by new synthetic dreams Put my mind into a jar / A tie me to a starship's frame To let a million years go by / And give me time enough to dream The early writers saw this guise / And made the mind a subtle weight To carry, download, or revise / And store within electron's fate So if the mind can carry thus / And slip into another view Who am I to make a fuss / And wonder where the soul is due REFRAIN Our bodies age and then decay / For youth is fleeting, gone too soon With barely time beneath the day / And longing is a bitter moon If there should be some chance to be / A way to lock death's sting away And trade this flesh for circuitry / What then is the cause to stay? REFRAIN Upon the cusp we mortal stand / Some hope that bridge will cross the sea That frees us from death's grasping hand / If so, what shall become of we Who choose the wild and lonely sky / When life and death are cycles past So if some trace of mind can fly / Give me time to soar at last REFRAIN