Just think of all that had to happen
so I could sit on the porch
this clear winter day and feel the warm sun
on my naked shoulders—bacteria
were engulfed by eukaryotic cells,
and after over a billion years,
multicellular organisms evolved
in the oceans before an explosion
of Cambrian life—sponges, brown
algae and slime molds. And then,
of course, the colonization of land
by the plants and fungi, followed
by arthropods and insects.
Some 500 million years later,
my mother and father met on a date,
set up by friends, and my dad, a biology major,
brought Coke instead of beer, which impressed
my mother, a history major, and they sat
and drank it together, seated on a picnic blanket
which they laid out on grass so green, so new
one could almost wring the saltwater out of it.