Five Times Before

Ninety-five out of every hundred species, gone That's a real number, carved straight into the stone The world has ended, as a world, five times before And every time, something crawled back through the door

Once when the ice locked up half the sea Once when the air forgot what air should be Once, the big one, the great dying, breath by breath Ninety-six percent of ocean life put to bed

Five times before, the record's carved in the ground Five times the curtain came down without a sound And five times something small, some quiet little thing Waited it out and started everything again

Once when the world got drier than it could hold Once when a rock the size of a mountain fell cold Out of a Yucatán sky, and the dinosaurs' reign Ended in dust, and the mammals got their name

Five times before, and none of them were the end Just a chapter closing, a shape starting to bend Into something new, a fern into a bird's wing A reptile into a whale that learned to sing

Five times before, we're not owed a sixth chance We're just the animal watching the hourglass Learning the pattern, hoping we're the exception Or wise enough this time to change the direction