darwin felt there is grandeur in this view of life.
take time to contemplate the ensnarled earth:
a webwork of fauna and flora, constant strife,
a natural knock-down-dragout, a cyclic dearth
of resources, famine and death. the planet spins
and orbits, wobbly compulsion, random forms
arise and duplicate- singular when it all begins-
evolve endless, complex, wondrous tangled norms,
boggled ramifications- narrow, terse
solutions or jury-rigged round and about
rube goldberg adaptations. there appears after billions of years
a hominid, the glory of the universe:
hairy quadruped, arboreal, no doubt,
in habit, furnished with a tail and pointed ears.
© philip kimball 2009