Pyrosome

Bombs, bullets, and human bones
Clutter the thin skin of the Anthropocene
And then, half an inch later, disappear.

The zooids continue to swim by the billions,
Filter feeding on Cyanobacteria
In great, glowing pink socks of colonies.

Who is the winner here? The pale blue dot
Spins, a bead with an orbiting mustard seed,
A hundred human paces from a basketball

Of burning sun. How can we measure
What we are, our failure or success,
In our universe too vast to find us absent?