Carboniferous

The sun beats down upon this world
Light drowning in an ocean of trees
which spreads from shore to shore

Beasts had risen from the sea before
Now one rests on the leaf of a scale tree
while an early riser flies by
flapping translucent wings

Horse tails reach high and soak up sunlight
The trunks fall, with age, down, onto each other
and they sink slowly, into the moist ground

(Later to be compacted into black
Our plants are fired by them
but spew forth too much
Little do the beasts know
A trace of leaves remains against the dark)

A fern's long green frond
brushes against the water's surface
A little one, four legs, sits on top, sipping

A sudden flash of flight whips over
four great wings twisting turning
it's pulled off its perch, snapped up, eaten

In the water lives a temnospondyl
(akin to a salamander, perhaps)
It blinks its eyes and wallows

Grow, forests grow, reach into the heavens
Your mighty lung breathes, breathes deep and low
Until when a fire starts it doesn't stop, it doesn't slow
Raze whole forests down
But the plants just keep on going, growing

A scale tree rises, rises higher
Stand below it, beast, and wonder
as the light of the younger sun
falls upon your open eyes

(in the end the rains stopped -
the forest gone, the deserts grew
the beast gasped and died
an era past, into a new beginning)
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