031218c

how many times in the Archean
was earthly life extinguished
finally we got lucky
a few billion years ago
hardly anything has happened since then
except the Permian extinction
which got 90% of us
but looking back a couple of hundred million years
you'd hardly know it
what next
an asteroid bigger than the one
that nailed the dinosaurs
a gigantic solar flare
blasting our atmosphere to atoms
oor, most likely
automated spaceships
sent in response to our radio and TV broadcasts
that revealed all too much
about us