Someone to Watch Over Me

References: "Someone to Watch Over Me," a song from a 1926 musical Oh, Kay! written by George and Ira Gershwin. The song has been used numerous times in television shows, musicals, and is included in the Great American Songbook.

In this episode of Voyager, love is in the life support system. Seven, a rescued Borg drone who is more Borg than human conducts a study of our capacity to love and be loved. She is helped by the Doctor, a hologram (essentially, he is made up of photons and force fields--a projection of life)--thus, we have a blind leading a blind. At 27, the topic of love comes up frequently, particularly in after hour conversations over a pitcher of beer at a dive bar. This episode is a reminder that even in the 24th century, love is at best as difficult to grasp as a time paradox.

I won’t succumb to the diatribe I prepared, but with all this talk of equal rights and love and protest, I feel it necessary to point out the Doctor’s predicament. He is in love with Seven. Strange, huh, for a hologram to love a former-Borg-turned-human? It’s funny and strange that we believe love must fit into certain boundaries, that there are guidelines and criteria two people must meet for society to qualify their feelings as love (see eharmony or marriage in general). Only in a Star Trek can we see good come out of difference. Though he doesn’t have the courage to admit his feelings to Seven, he leaves us with a reminder: “Won’t you tell her to put on some speed? Oh, how I need someone to watch over me.” Even in the 24^th century, as a lonely hologram sits at a piano humming a century old tune, we all understand his predicament. Whether we’re brown or white, male or female, Bolian or Vulcan, we all need someone to watch over us.

For this blog, I could spill my guts to all ten of you and tell you what I think of the subject at hand. But then I thought that might be boring, or worse, preachy. So let me share instead a few poems on the subject and I'll leave this topic in your capable hands to work out.

Firefly

I always believed in you.

When you asked

about my firefly collection

sitting on the shelf,

I told you quietly

I could hear them breathe.

Illuminating the shadows in my room,

pulsating in rhythm to the beat

of your heart I held so,

just so, in my hands

You said, forever.

I replied, always.

At dawn I sat at your side,

as you dreamt a dreamer’s dream.

Free from the abscess of our love,

and you never told me why.

The jar hummed in place,

looking down on this scene.

The glow fading in twilight.

A sole firefly remained,

and as it spiraled to join its dead

your heart turned in my hands.

And I awoke alone,

the bed still warm,

and the room now dark.

After a Heavy Rain

This is how I thought it’d be:

your ring on the nightstand,

the warmth of your fingers

fading from the silver.

Small pieces of poems scattered about,

wrinkled in with the sheets, left

on the kitchen tiles,

like the droplets flecked careless

onto the porch

after a heavy rain,

drying in the afternoon sun.