4 seconds of history

Manan Bhan

If the Earth’s history were depicted on a clock
Humans emerge at 23:59.56,
an ephemeral forever.

Geological time is trivial
If Earth’s age is 4.5 billion years,
where does one epoch end and the other begin?
Millions of generations lived in uncertainty.
Human time is philosophical
Anthropocene, 4,500,001,750 or 4,500,001,945?
Reams written per day
on the need for a geological marker.

Geological time is imperceptible, deliberate
the metamorphosis of rocks
the accretion of stardust
the explosion of life, the drift of land.

Human time is in a hurry
societies, kingdoms, destinies
the carelessness of the axe
the impatience of the sickle.

Both times always on the move
bending destinies to their collective will.
The water in our bodies
will be ocean soon enough.
The rock on that ocean bed
was once a mountain.

Other bodies where we search for life
deep in the trenches, high in the mountains
far away in space.
Why?
To write their histories while
we hurtle towards the end of our own.
Ourselves a product of evolution thinking aloud
now undo generations of work
by playing with the fate of others.
What is slow to build up – eons
is fast to fall apart – years.
Yet they say, history is written by the victor.

The Science

We live in two time periods - the geologic and the human. The geologic one has stretched for several millennia and will stretch on for several more. The human, on the other hand, is fleeting. Both have their own processes of action, perceived by the rate of change of the phenomena taking place around us. My poem describes how humans have tried to write the history of both time periods, of beings both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial, and hoe they now hold epoch-changing powers on the Earth’s natural processes. 

The Poet

Manan Bhan is an ecosystem scientist and doctoral researcher who lives in Vienna, Austria. His research tries to understand what societies do with land, and what that means for the carbon stored in these landscapes. Recently, he has started experimenting with how he expresses his thoughts on nature and the environment. He has published previously in Issue 3 of Consilience, describing scientific process as theatre. Another of his poems on forest abandonment and regrowth has now been published as a part of a book. He can always be found with a cup on chai in his hand, and also on Twitter @maybeEcosystems.

Next poem: anthropo-obscenity by Samuel Eberenz