One Million A.D.

No one left to sing about the empty honky-tonks 

in Texas no one left to worry about the fate 

of hummingbirds no one left to see beauty 

in orange groves gone wild no one to watch 

the last locust emerge from the exhausted ground

Meanwhile 523 trillion miles from Earth 

Voyager One still carries that naked welcome to

anyone anytime anywhere

I just imagine some distant explorer with what

serves for fingers running them across 

the Golden Record decoding the invitation 

to dinner and racing here to meet their host 

Today my grandma sweeps her kitchen floor 

to catch that one crumb that eluded her at lunch

while the wife and I take pickleball lessons 

and our son slays aliens on his Xbox as his

girlfriend feeds him Cheese Doodles so he doesn't

need to take his fingers from the game controls

Not one of us stops to ponder the distant future 

until this snowy morning when my world looks like

it would under a million years of dust  

and all the pessimist in me can think of is: I hope 

the last person to perish is polite enough to leave 

a note behind for any visitors explaining

we just couldn't wait for them any longer.