by Brett Rutherford
When giant beasts roamed forests
sweltering, and boiling seas
brewed monsters ammoniac,
when Titans tread volcano’s edge’
sinkholes appeared in one place,
while in another, peaks
jagged with metallic ores
reared up to pierce the sky.
Ice vanished, replaced by storms
whose displaced waters
roared with rage, and fell
again upon the stunned ground.
It was not a kind earth,
brute with physics,
savage in every season,
sorting the myriad of life
with cancellation, apex
species crushed down
to the fossil record.
