The Greatest Show On Earth

1.) Four Point Six
Archaean horizon
The first sunrise
On a pristine Gaea
Opus perfectum
Somewhere there, us sleeping

2.) Life
The cosmic law of gravity
Pulled the newborns around a fire
A careless, cold infinity in every vast direction
Lonely farer in the Goldilocks zone
She has a tale to tell
From the stellar nursery into a carbon feast
Enter LUCA

*The tapestry of chemistry
There’s a writing in the garden
Leading us to the Mother of all

#We are one
We are a universe
Forbears of what will be
Scions of the Devonian sea
Aeons pass
Writing the tale of us all
A day-to-day new opening
For the greatest show on Earth#*

Ion channels welcoming the outside world
To the stuff of stars
Bedding the tree of a biological holy
Enter life

REPEAT *

We are here to care for the garden
The wonder of birth
Of every form most beautiful
Every form most beautiful
REPEAT #

3.) The Toolmaker
After a billion years
The show is still here
Not a single one of your fathers died young
The handy travelers
Out of Africa
Little Lucy of the Afar
Gave birth to fantasy
To idolatry
To self-destructive weaponry
Enter the god of gaps
Deep within the past
Atavistic dread of the hunted
Enter Ionia, the cradle of thought
The architecture of understanding
The human lust to feel so exceptional
To rule the Earth
Hunger for shiny rocks
For giant mushroom clouds
The will to do just as you’d be done by
Enter history, the grand finale
Enter Ratkind
^Man, he took his time in the sun
Had a dream to understand
A single grain of sand
He gave birth to poetry
But one day’ll cease to be
Greet the last light of the library^
REPEAT ^
We were here!
We were here!
We were here!
We were here!
4.) The Understanding
5.) Sea-Worn Driftwood