As I sit here on the rocks above the Pedernales
In my 62 nd year,
I acknowledge that my time here—
My time on Planet Earth—
Is a mere second.
Who sat here before me, a human generation ago?
A century ago, a millennium ago, in human time?
Did they see the land and trees and plants and animals I see?
Am I sharing what they experienced?
Or was it a different place?
And what has this spot been like—for thousands of years—
For all the kinds of life forms that have browsed it,
Rested upon it, drank of its waters,
Lived and perhaps died here?
May I freeze-frame this panorama and come back,
A thousand years from now, and see it, contemplate it, again?
No…mine is but a second.