Earth
the floating stone
we call our own
the blue spot argonaut
the snag in the wool of gravity’s pull
sustained by the grace
of the perfectly placed
Life
the spark in the dark
of the protozoa ark
biding its time
on destiny’s dime
stuck at the Stop and Go
of the never know
Unpropelled and single-celled
with no map or design
or intervention divine
mad as a hatter
and twice as sublime
The lone chromosome at
the slim-chance dance
of happenstance
For billions of years
we hobnobbed
in murky Jurassic tide pools
and heated ocean vents
above us
scalene shadows
of pterodactyl’s gliding
their featherless wings
warmed by a thuggish sun
the emergence beckoning
of our divergent reckoning
to that unguided moment
when we planted
a finned foot with no input
on the iffy shores of dinosaurs
tilting our thin-lipped
reptilian face towards
that acid-orange sky
Arrival survival
pockets of luck
worried, we scurried
from out of the muck
we crawled on our belly
for millions of years
dodging extinction
overcoming our fears
turning our backs
on oceans and seas
crisscrossing the plains
and carousing in trees
time shoved us along
without out any say
so, along we all went,
slowly making our way
Now look at us,
we’re a civilized mess
in the land of the more
we’ve never had less
Less kindness, compassion,
wisdom, and mirth
a desire for heaven
and disdain for the Earth
we guide planes into towers
and poison the air
we know what the fix is
but turn blindly to prayer
Danish Fatwas and papal decrees
we can’t reach the stars
when down on our knees
If we don’t break the chains
to the Gods we invented
if Batman’s and Banes
are the only incentive
then the fools will be ruled
by the vane and demented
bendingtheneedle 