Reddish orange boulders of shadowed stone,
deadwood, coyote bones, stiff desert plants
and ancient trees define a sharp horizon.
Here are empty hills, the end of history,
the crunch of fossils beneath tired boots.
Water lived here once. Rushing, gurgling streams
of sloshing white waves, filtering throughout
cool, wet sandstone, great soggy lakes drowning
a surreal green seaweed world. Now, only
the crackling static of time floods the air.
If time teaches us anything, it is this:
the boiling plasma will retreat
leaving a new land for some future race.
Fresh memory will flame into dawn
and build the forest of some future day.
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