The Truth About Tigers

The creek behind our home,
usually a dry bed,
splits from the San Gabriel
where dinosaurs once crossed,
leaving behind their steps in stone,
exhibits we share with our children.

Just beyond the creek,
where trees stretched to the highway,
now lies a concrete meadow—
buildings sprout rapidly
like saplings eager for light,
constructed with dreams of permanence,
though unlikely to last a hundred million years.

Forests, given time, will reclaim this land,
perhaps another inland sea,
or, more likely under warming skies,
and retreating rain clouds,
a vast desert.

And someday, some future being
might find a trace of our existence,
captured in time and stone,
and to their young, they’ll whisper,
Behold—homo sapiens once walked here,
before they set their world aflame
and vanished into the smoke-filled corridors of time.