died today.
75% known species
went extinct.
If you looked up
a “star”’s
luminosity grew
very large.
The previous lush
warm planet
just teeming with
organisms—
an asteroid plunged
Earth from
Cretaceous Period
into dark
deep freeze Palogene.
It was as if
we took a billion
Hiroshima
bombs’ lone bullet:
peaks rose
much higher than
Mt. Everest.
Temperatures
higher
than our sun’s.
Wildfires
of forests,
set subcontinent
India ablaze.
Oceans emptied.
Ash covered
all – only ferns
thrived.
But vagabond
debris sown
into space had
microbes
which make it
promising
2 Jupiter moons
contain life.
And 66 million
years pass
bark beetle bits,
paddlefish
conifers blossom
as dinosaurs
give way to
previously trivial
mammals which’s
what allowed
us a short time to
thrive ‘til now?
________
Gerry Sarnat, MD is first place winner of the Poetry in the Arts Dorfman Prize and is a Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee. His most recent book is Melting the Ice King (2016). Sarnat’s writing has been published in Main Street Rag, Los Angeles Review, The New York Times and others.
“Fossil Feud” by Karen Hackenberg.
________
The Day the Dinosaurs Died
[New Yorker]
