Eight billion species
I have survived
To meet with you tonight
I bred and morphed
Lived and died
Laughed and cried
Through fur and scales
And slimy membranes
I reached out to you
In the muck and mud,
Primal soup
And on the bottom
Of the murky pond
I have touched your hand
And made you scurry
To the safety of your
Seaweed jungle
Foxhole,
Suburban condominium,
And my soft body
Grew shells and scales,
Spikes and venom,
Legs and wings
Racing through lives
Like time lapse photography
Screeching, roaring,
Peeping, warbling
Chattering changling
How many times have I
Been snatched and eaten
Only to start again?
Looking for you
To create a story
To tell our larva
As we seep into the next creature
In the evolutionary sequence
But we have reached the apex
Climbed the ladder
Built the pyramid
By which our wastes
Flow in buckets
Down its steep sides
An avalanche of karma
Snuffing out the lives
Of those we once were
Suffocating our young
Petrifying our eggs
And blocking the current
Of spiritual ascension
For all beings
From whom we have emerged
And for the lack of evolution
Of our tiny brains
We will not become the stars
But slip back into the soup
From which we have no exit strategy
And like the deep oceanic current
Our wastes and gases have fought
To terminate
The migration of souls
Will flow in retracted convolutions
In endless loops
Of indeterminate destination
Beneath the glacial icecaps,
Half a mile thick,
That blanket the earth
And deep within the ice
My cold dead hand
Reaches out to touch you
