Restoration

When the Divine dreams of a new Eden, 

    creation remakes the world. 

Streams of contingencies interweave 

    as causation braids a trillion threads: 

An orbit elongates, eruptions abate, 

    neighboring stars go nova, or don’t. 

An ocean expands and currents subside.

    A killer comet veers wide of its mark. 

Then in the shifting course of time 

    there comes a confluence  

when dreams condense to creation 

    and Gaia rises to cleanse the world. 

She summons the storm clouds, 

    unleashes the knife-edged winds, 

breaches the levied flood plains, 

    and sweeps the jettied coast. 

She packs the high snow fields 

    till mountain peaks glisten 

and glaciers scrape the jagged slopes, 

    carve passes, and water the plains. 

She cracks the concrete ruins. 

    Wastelands revert to meadows, 

crumbled tarmac blossoms with flowers, 

    and culverts run clear. 

Southern seas are ringed with reefs 

    and Arctic waters teem with krill. 

Forests shade artesian springs 

    and grasslands cover blackened soils. 

The tree of life grows wild. 

    Tribes of leviathans roam the oceans, 

clans of behemoths patrol the ice, 

    gray sage-birds weave epics on tropical nights.

The world is a wilderness dotted with parks 

    where Earth-keepers tend garden reserves 

and nurseries for emerging minds 

     that will bless a billion years. 

Thomas Cole - The Garden of Eden