What Everyone’s Up To Rarely Says Much About Anyone

Burn more wood, eat more food,
Leave behind more garbage,
All you need to know you

Are a population
On the rise. Your decline
Will be just the reverse,

Less burning, less garbage.
Sometimes populations
Have grown millenniums,

Cratered millenniums.
In the midst of either,
Probably hard to guess

Just how in the middle
Of long eras things were.
Which is to say, things could

Get quiet pretty soon
Or not for centuries.
Meanwhile, how’s life for you,

Burning more fuel, eating
More food, leaving behind
More garbage? No, just you.