Planet Yet by Andrew Shephard

When I was born I crighed.

I didn’t know how to spell.

When I went to school

the big bang was a twinkle in my teacher’s eye.

Eternity like the sun would last forever.

Electrons and other stuff we couldn’t see

didn’t exist except in pictures

and never in two places at once

especially not in far Australia.

A boson was a misspelled shipmate

not a particle darkly hidden.

Homo Saps was the apex of creation,

the cleverest creature on the planet yet.

When I went to work I sighed.

It made me feel unwell.

The humans were buried in computers

while tooled-up machines

corrected and consumed the Earth

by purpose and mistake.

Back home, I watch TV.

Damn! Eternity no longer means forever.

Do we lack the will to save all from destruction,

the dumbest creature on the planet yet?