Meditation #17 -- contemplating extinction

[Note:  I do not believe this will actually happen; this piece came to me at a time of especially gloomy obsessing, but I feel it's worth posting.  Nothing in this post should be construed as political.]

When mankind is gone, when only beasts reign over the Earth again,
None will mourn, nor celebrate.
Mourning, celebration, the very meaning of death, die with us;
For they are of the mind.

Never again will a parent delight
In hearing a child's first words.
Never again will a student's spine feel chills
From a printed page, in sudden awe at an idea.

Never again will a trained mind consider a problem,
Imagine a solution,
Put it to the grueling test of hard evidence,
And bring forth knowledge that was not there before.

All our art is but vain jumbles of color now,
For without the beholder's eye, there is no beauty.
Our monuments, our cathedrals, our towers of commerce and rule
Rot and crumble, century by century, unadmired.

The voices of Shakespeare, Twain, Darwin, Voltaire,
All the sages who inspired billions,
Forever silent now, for all their acres of marks on paper
Have no meaning when none are left to read.

In a million years, nothing will remain,
In a world as wild and mindless as a million years before us.
Even our uttermost flotsam on the Moon and Mars
In time will yield to meteoric dust, the pitiless flaking of heat and cold.

In a billion years, perhaps,
Mind may arise again, on some other sphere,
Succeeding where we failed, claiming at last for their own
The galaxy that should have been ours.

They may even count our Earth among their many worlds, to live upon,
Never dreaming we once were here.