Feeling the Umami

Our commonplace emotions,
Never new,
Never old,
Color the world;
Recycled like the rainbow,
Bestowing significance on everything.
The colors of our lives:
Red, yellow, green, violet
Happy, sad, angry, scared,
Suspicious, disgusted, ashamed,
Surprised, hopeful,
And a few more you get from mixing.
Could any amount of DNA editing
Add another emotion to our repertoire,
Or is this it?
Cannot even science add another color to the paint box?


On the furthest planet,
Skimming along the rim of the universe,
Do they feel nothing different?
It is too early to say.
We could travel a long, long way,
To verify that we can only ever be ourselves;
Or, perhaps the wormholes are too distant
In space time
For us worms to reach,
So we might never know.
More sensible to just accept it right now:
There are only so many emotions flavoring our lives—
Sweet, sour, tart, sweet,
Umami!
But there are enough,
Just as there are enough notes on the scale,
Enough lines, shapes, textures,
Waves, breezes,
Seasons.
If the aliens have learned this,
It might explain why they never visit.