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Why do we care about these reefs
dead 350 million years
scarcely impressive when alive
now just blobs in rock
dissolving in the acid rain
will the Great Barrier Reef die twice too?
We are killing it softly
in 350 million years
will anyone mourn its etching
corpse?
Scholarly publications will be more concerned
with that peculiar, short-lived race
that poisoned the planet so thoroughly
it took millennia of millennia
to recover

There are times in earth history
almost devoid of reefs
their bland and ugly cousins
small and unassuming
their time comes once again
with the corals dying
algae and bacteria
bastions of reefs 350 million years ago
750 million years ago
and for a billion years before that
once again will rule the seas
parrotfish will call them Lord
we won't call them anything
you can't do that when you're dead