We Barely Exist

Grateful Dead: jams from 1971--1983...(5+ hours)

Stick out your arms, he'd say,
straight out at your sides,
and when he had you in the
appropriate cruciform position
he'd say, Left index finger
to right index finger
straight across your heart,
that's the history of the Earth.
You know what human history is? Human history is the nail
on your right-hand index finger.
Not even the whole nail.
Just that little white part.
The part you clip off
when it gets too long.
That's the discovery of fire
and the invention of writing
and Galileo and Newton
and the moon landing and 9/11
and last week and this morning.
Compared to evolution we're newborns.
Compared to geology, we barely exist.
--Robert Charles Wilson