Lullaby for the Second Millennium

From the point of view of all time, these recent changes signal more a return to nature than a departure, than degradation. In the beginning, after all, there was boiling rock. Then waters arranging their bodies around an era of softer forms: lichen, grassland, swaying treetops. Then creatures, movingly fleshed, treading pathways that hardened. Then pavement hardening and cities, monumental. Soon mostly rock again, and radiant. More and more like moon. Soon, sooner than is being thought, there will be even more light. The creatures will have stopped being able to move or be moved. And the rock will boil.