Plankton lights up the abyss like fireflies, and as a firefly I am housed in your glass. In your glass the plankton explosion suffocated the life it later made possible when trees were born without a parent they could call their own. Then fig or palm, then Jericho, but who are we without lichen or Lystrosaurus: a mouthful of the preposterously displaced consonant to honor the extinct, who once inherited the earth, with a dead language. It wasn’t the meek among the dinosaurs who inherited, and it won’t be the meek among us who would. Then Darwin and Wallace. At last a prophet or two from your part of the world.
Fady Joudah is the author of […].
This piece appeares in the Summer 2025 issue of Nimrod. Subscribe here and support our work!