Listen to Marvin read History’s Shape
A
Bit
Of evolution
And there we were,
Humans struggling to stay alive.
We hunted, gathered, used wit and learned to farm.
Then we invented gods and monarchs, ferocious, truculent.
Voracious greed and war drove industry, innovation, science.
Villages grew into cities coalescing into combative nation states.
We suffered drought, flood, plagues, burned witches, and yearned.
We learned commerce—overcame mountains, oceans, even sky.
Then came advertising, and its bastard offspring: fashion, style.
Fords won’t do—we want Maseratis, yachts, private jets—
More industry, more! And war—incessant, stupid war.
Slowly, then quickly, desire replaced need.
Untrammeled, industry poisoned air,
The soil, the seven seas. Soon
Our humankind began
To gasp and fail—
Even insects
Faltered,
Leaving
One tiny
Thread
Of viral
DN
A
(2/20/11)