A baby shuts his eyes and sees
bull continents drift,
collide, startle, spin around.

Prehistoric bucks suddenly accusing-
(Did YOU just back into ME?)
They jam head-to-head,
gouge, reconcile, then confer.
(The baby likes what he sees.)

The beasts get down to business.
They iron out earth’s future
with special bellows, & lots of musk.

Above this caucus
of nodding, naying heads,
clacking antlers mesh
into a burgeoning thicket.
(He calls for more!)

The thicket shudders,
sprouts into a dagger forest.

It shoots up recklessly like a baby’s legs,
and jabs the sky with young ideas:

New species, struggles, lies.
Whole societies in the air,
too busy to teach their children
about the bellowing below.

The weight of so much life is too much.

There is a final SNAP
of prehistoric backs.

Not a grain remains on which to carve
the memory of all the things
that passed before this baby’s eyes.

– Jack Ritter