If time were all a day, they say,
then earth whirled in, late evening,
like a drunkard, threw up life,
five minutes to midnight,
all human history compressed
to less than a sec.
But see, gentle in the twilight,
the silent roedeer, slipping slowly
between the birches, stop still, sniff,
four feet, formal as forms,
to be off on an instant
bounding through the bushes.
And as for us, just in time!
Civilization, spaceships, sunsets,
meditations on modernity
pantomimes, popovers, and poetry,
ability to appreciate art and the artful,
the poised pose of the deer.
If we had happened earlier
we’d be done in by now
whirled away on the wind
eliminated by entropy.
Seems something’s to be said for
evolving in the eleventh hour.
(This is for Michael Von Korff and the Vericon Auction, and sponsored by my terrific Patrons at Patreon.)
