To My Readers in the Distant Future
 
 
Just kidding. I know I’ll have no readers,
and there’s a real chance of no future, anyway,
what with this hothouse we’ve been brewing
down here on earth, our only planet a nest
we’ve been furiously fouling ever since we
tottered upright. Only now (that’s then to you,
should you exist) we’ve gotten so damn good
at fouling, so truly heedless and dire, we
just might tip over the edge soon—rising oceans,
monsoons and tornados running amok and,
should we somehow figure out how to cool it,
there’s always the chance of some nutjob
reckless as Attila with his fingers on the nuclear
trigger. But maybe not. Maybe we muddle along,
a famine here, extinction there, a few epidemics
pruning the family tree, and in eight hundred years
you’re you, sifting the ashes and gazing pensively
over our ruins wondering who we were, really,
what made us tick and why we worshipped
these huge mounds of old tires unearthed at
the outskirts of all the vanished cities—our gods
called Firestone, Goodyear, and Michelin,
about whom little is known beyond speculation.
 
Anyway, I’m glad you’re OK, whoever you are,
with whatever clacketing gibberish you call
a language rising into summer air like crickets
in the humid night. Are there still crickets where
you are? Probably, not to mention rats, pigeons,
and vultures circling high over your highways,
down which you are zooming so urgently
in some sort of science fiction vehicles we
can’t even imagine. But I can predict
you’ll be in a big hurry, just like us, as if
you need to get somewhere fast, as if you’ll
just die if you don’t arrive soon. Well, I’m
here (which is there!) to tell you, you’ll die
whether or not you hurry, never fear.