post ice age fast track

The end of the last ice age
The beginning of agriculture and cities
On the fast track to 10 billion humans
Start everything 12,000 years ago.

All the eons of geological time
All the millions of years of evolution
But just 2 million years of homo genus ancestors
And just 200,000 years of homo sapiens.

Perhaps 30 million people alive then on earth
Perhaps all descended from 50 people
Our genetics so much the same in all of us
Becoming farmers and multiplying to 300 million.

200 years ago is a blink in time
Current events almost modern times
So suddenly the industrial revolution
Dominates all life on this planet.

More people alive today
Than all the people dead and gone.
More stuff manufactured in my lifetime
Than everything made by everyone before.

So many species decimated going extinct
The impact of human exploitation
The inexorable global warming catastrophe
The legacy we leave to our children.

In the darkest hour the contradictions rule
The dialectic engenders new ideas new struggles
The impossible inconceivable change happens
The old order collapses as a new system emerges.

back deck flowers from seed

slide show

willowwood garden

slide show

good looking people

Riding the bike path along the Saddle River,
Looking at the good looking people there,
We go for exercise and health.
I enjoy being with my companion.

Making eye contact as we pass,
Some look back and smile or say hello.
Around us the light in the sky and on the water.
I see egrets, woodchucks, rabbits and a deer.

Musing about the Red Queen hypothesis as the pedals turn,
Thinking about Ridley’s take on the evolution of sex.
Noticing how I notice the cute young women,
Taking them in from a distance.

Is my attention determined by my genes?
Is this my male brain scanning for mates?
I am much too old for this.
I was never much for that.

She who rides with me sees their beauty, too,
Admiring their youthful form and energy.
Flirting and pairing or serene by themselves,
They are not interested in us.