One Day in Shark Bay

Whatever the first
Oxygen-using
Organisms were,
The revolution
Wasn’t theirs, except

In retrospect. Those
Lives started something,
But they weren’t much part
Of what they started,
Nor will people be.

From its inception,
The collective mind
Gathered in language
Was an alien
To earlier life,

Even if people
Remained animals—
Bloody, hormonal,
Sexual, hungry,
Social animals,

All of them fine apes
And mammals, like
All others before.
But that’s over now.
Mind’s sprouting new forms.