Eocene
Time of rising temperatures
the dawn horse gallops on primitive hooves
greeting the day’s heat with hunger and teeth
grinding small-brained toward
longer-limbed progeny
expanding onto the first grassy plains
no mountains to snow on but
coming on slowly
continents
creep
impact
the planet
give it a taste for
carbon dioxide
imbibed so gradually
life flourishes birthing all manner of beasts
even our ancestors rise in the birth-time of the crease-kissed Himalayas
youngfold ranges that pique
our interest
keep us scrambling
gear-craving mules
arriving late
at their feet.
Tipping Point
Don’t blink or you’ll miss it the moment we all hit the gas for the last time on this side of the brink the merger of here with the margin of error our oops overshot by the extra 100 watts more than 100 years of flight, drive, and fight for convenience, luxury, patriotic sport, or fury. Don’t be caught wasting time sending out another ping just to savour the music of a doomed echo on the lookout for fan-fares signal flares, messages from God or aliens the billboard’s already up it’s written by bees, amphibians and educated simians pointing to not a place but a momentous mistake this way we tip our world into imbalance. We will never see it recover.
