Rusty Billabong

Fifteen million or so orbits ago,
When there were no bipedal apes
At all, so far as anyone yet knows,

Ten million years or so, or more, before
The oldest Hom bones now identified
As possibly directly ancestral,

Life was pretty much life as you know it,
Albeit without any episodes
Being codified in linguistic form.

We just note this to frame a depth of field.
Apologies, if we sound too textbook.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même. Or, more like,

The more they change, the more similarly
They go on changing. The finely preserved
Insect and arachnid fossils just found

In a rust-soaked billabong of that time,
Include a number of extinct species,
All of them up to old familiar games

Along with those still up to them today—
Parasitic nematodes and pollen
Predators, infecting and infected

At the moment of death, the whole jungle,
More or less, in one particular pond
Long gone to tombs of rust-red, dusty stones.

Pay attention. Attention brings meaning,
And meaning’s what the bipeds bring to this
As to all things—your one invented thing.