The incandescent Sun
is eating itself alive

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The helium will compact
to a carbon red giant's core

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The Earth's heat is depleted
by geothermal extraction

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The geysers are drying up
and the pressure sinks in subsidence

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The permafrost decomposes
and prehistoric methane effervesces

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The Yellowstone caldera hisses
plumes of taunting toxic gases

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The sea-floor volcanoes
purge their way to the surface

They said it's too slow to matter
too slow to matter

The aurora lights the sky
as solar wind ravages the magnetosphere

They said it's too small to matter
too small to matter

Now
You are a free oxygen radical,
you set the chain reaction
and there are more of you than I can
detoxify.

Then
I breathed you in-
-voluntarily;
you were always there,
at the end of the electron transport chain,
you broke apart
to accommodate my capricious protons
and you changed state;
for me.

Now
I am in oxidative
s
            t
 r
            e
  s
             s
as you are colliding
your way through my melanocytes -

and my skin is draining white
and my eyes are burning red.

I'm thinking about June Acott
She died on the 18th of August, 2009
She had aged seventy-four years before her demise
That's what the bench says, anyway.
If June Acott were a wine she would be a glowing, sweet red
June Acott would be a summer wine
She would be a pricey vintage
And as she had aged the sediment would have built up
And it would have smoothed her rough edges
But maybe that wasn't enough
And maybe if she'd been decanted she would have aged seventy-five years
Or maybe seventy-six
But seventy-four is a vintage that anyone would be proud to have in their cabinet
And I hope that whoever built this memorial bench serves her all the time.