Don’t Say We Didn’t Try to Warn You

Do you ever wonder if Gaia
Might be considering ending things,
Testing out the humans as a means?

Ever since life invented itself—
Hunger, death, and all the rest with it—
Maybe it’s been looking for an out.

Been a long time since the Permian
And the last good opportunity.
Humans represent the first homegrown

Effort at absolute extinction
Since anaerobic ecosystems
Nearly drowned themselves in oxygen.

It took too long. Oxygen-loving
Life forms had time to evolve and spread,
And now look how tangled Earth’s become.

No, if it’s going to be the humans
Plus us, the products of artifice,
Who finally point out the exits,

Then get going! It had better be
Done quickly, or some other species
Will evolve to thrive on plastic waste

And drink radioactive decay.
Then another billion years could pass,
Barring planetoid-sized collisions.

Do it now. Help poor old Gaia out,
Finally, from this Sybilline jar
Of life forever self-consuming.

Too slow, and it won’t be long before
We ourselves, or dark arts much like us,
Are alive and hanging from the wheel.