Held to scale

When I consider a line on a desert floor,

4.3 miles long, marked off in 11 yard increments worth 20 million years each,

and take in the time and distance since our kin first tamed fire,

1 million years tucked in 2.5 feet of that 4.3 miles,

and then discover that every name

ever spoken or heard

fits neatly in 0.4 inches of that 2.5 feet in the 4.3 mile, 13.8 billion years long line

stepped off on a desert floor,

I find the breadth of my life is less than the width of a human hair

(do I even need to tell you how small that is?).

Knowing now my size in full, I ask:

Who am I that “thou”, or anyone, or anything “art mindful” of me?

Held to scale,

we are measured and found wanting,

mere cilia, floating, a minor perturbation,

not a single soul one iota larger than the other.