We are in a time of endings
The last speakers of languages
Disappearing animals and plants
Some we probably never knew
Ancient trees felled into board feet
With their knowledge untapped
Like the quiet whispers of the stones
Islands drowned by rising seas
Brief footnotes in future histories
If there are more to be written
Perhaps it will all be epitaphs
About distantly remembered this
And that known only from books
Or digital reconstructions
In their cool indifference