One improbably tall, whimsical, wizard-hat shaped cedar tree
Tilted its top across the parking lot from the end
Of a world that kept filling its baskets with notices
That bark beetles and blight were felling its cousins
All over California, and the fires so severe
The forests would never come back,
Only scrubland, only shrubs. In my mind's eye
I pictured Anatolia and goats and then
The lost cedars of Ilyanka and Humbaba,
And I felt morose and nostalgic for a home
Made up of dead, dry twigs of human history,
Pressed paper, burnt bricks. Never been.
10^120/10^88=10^32,
Equals our total allotment of entropy
To create between the birth of the universe
And the utter indifference of its death.
Recent calculations suggest we've used
Ten to the tenth earth-year-based units
To get to where we are doing these tricks,
And these tricks further suggest it will take
Until ten to the fortieth of those units
To exhaust every distinction left. So,
We're good. I guess.
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