What I won’t think about are the glitches in the system.
The one where, after four hundred years of smooth running,
the ocean disgorged its carbon skywards
like iron filings drawn up by a magnet.
I won’t dwell on it.
I won’t dwell on the model where a sudden storm
deposited a cloud of sediment
causing a plankton bloom
that fused all the world’s water into a stiff, organic paste.
I won’t think of that paste,
its texture or smell
———————-(grainy? vegetable?)
and I won’t think of that other model
where, after the smallest change
in the initial calculations,
all marine life evaporated
leaving the sea bright as a polished lens.
Instead, I’ll look out of my dusty window
at the blue-tit hanging on the back of a fern,
the plum tree teetering on the edge of spring,
and try to find other words for
precarious
————-momentary
—————————–imminent
try not to think of the hard drives
filled with terabytes of failed worlds
that never even made it to now.