Trilobites and Plankton

A special kind of wasting
Is squandering, blowing wealth
Instead of conserving it

Or, better yet, growing it,
Spending freely and only
On what yields no capital

Return. Or, squandering gifts,
Natural talents, smarts, wit,
Perfect pitch, lissome beauty,

Anything that makes others
Envious for lacking it,
Any capability

To pole vault to the good life
That ends up dissipated,
Broken, underused—squandered.

There’s a special kind of scorn,
A disgust for squandering,
Born of the deep conviction

That, if only one possessed
What the squanderer squandered,
One would have maximized it,

And here this fool’s wasted it,
This third-generation heir,
This nouveau-riche arriviste,

This drug-addled musician,
This alcoholic artiste,
This police-taunting athlete,

This underemployed genius,
So-called genius, what a waste!
As if anyone had life

Too firmly gripped to escape,
And no one could be bitten
By the monster in their grip.

Will some future alien
Or homegrown sentient being
Sigh at all the squandering

Done by the extinct humans
Who had the planet in hand
And left only cliffs of waste?

Only if they’re envious.
Do you tut-tut the limestone
Squandered by lives lived in waves?