I thought once again as I occasionally do on bad days
about how in five billion years or so
the sun will expand & become a red giant
engulfing Mercury & Venus & perhaps Earth
toasting our planet like a marshmallow in a campfire

& assuming the human race
hasn’t figured out interstellar travel & colonized the galaxy
having deserted the husk of this once so beautiful
blue speck in space
in search of new worlds to despoil

& assuming that technologically superior & weirdly altruistic aliens
have not arrived deus ex machina  
to whisk us away to some new paradise

& instead we have long since left the building
our best efforts to overcome our rapacious nature
& secure the longterm survival of our species
a total bust

for the first time ever I shrugged my shoulders
& said So?