blink fronds

back then, our first insects were busy
evolving, trying to be the first insect, as
the trees and fish flourished, spoiled in disparate
realms, until lands submerge or oceans subsume.
same difference what lasts
mineralized in fossil shadow,
a forest preserved in a locket of stone
as history was pulverized into gravel for
sundry human whims
three hundred eighty five million years ago
under that spot in the quarry
where public officials have to place large
square impediments to keep
the fourwheelers
from ripping up what hasn't already been
reduced to footnotes in infinity