Earth was birthed
in trauma, drama,
crashing meteors, oceans
of molten lava,
fire, fire, fire
followed by tens of millions of years
of rain, earth covered
in raging seas, life
straining to rise from the deep’s
utter darkness. Then ice covered over
everything, frozen extinction of most of the living.
In the melt
came explosions
of plants and creatures,
blooming, swimming, thundering, soaring,
continents formed and sundered,
dinosaurs in forests and jungles.
Their reign was ended
by a massive meteorite
and small burrowing mammals
crawled out into light.
After millions of more years of fire and ice
we, their descendants,
rife with curiosity, adaptability
emerged ascendant.
“Wise Men” say
we can’t change the way things have been, the old order
but humans live on earth’s outer layer of crust
while volcanoes, magma
roil beneath us.
Despite insane wars for control, vain delusions
of permanent stability─
cataclysmic change
is the nature of nature,
in our DNA
and the driving force at play
in history.