Predictable
What were the odds they did not know?
So many, many years ago, according to the records
they had left in there, it seems the answer was, quite low.
How strange the paradox of nature, how unpredictable
the outcome of its selections, how some variations
with the best chance to survive
became the human species,
became nature reflecting
on itself,
yet could not understand
that to stop adapting to its environment,
instead to change it, exploit it, a tipping point
would be reached, a no going back extinction event
would be unleashed, and adaptation would no longer be
an option.
Oh the stories we have found! The art fantastic as the sounds
of sea on shore, birds awakening with the golden dawn and
the scent, still present in its capsule, of an ancient rose.
How primitive their science, yet how predictable
the future was for them in small steps undertook with effort:
they knew slide rule soon and to the second
when Apollo would return from the dark side of the moon;
they knew nano chip soon and to the second
when and where an eclipse of the sun would pass at noon;
they knew too soon and to what degree
rising temperatures and rising seas foretold their doom.
What were the odds they did not know
how precious was this Eden, how rare an oasis in a vast unfriendly space,
when they sealed this vault five million years ago?
(Should this poem go in the vault? If so,
we have ten years left and then we'll know
and they'll know, too . . . we knew.)
- original poem written on the 5th of December in the year 2019 CE
Predictable poetry contest sponsored by Nina Parmenter
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