Four point five billion years.
Happy birthday planet Earth.
Now prick up your ears.
Prepare to shed tears.
And face up to
the sum of all fears.

Two billion rabbits.
Give or take.
Bunnys are hard to number.
On account
of their startling breeding rate.
Four hundred and fifty million cows.
Of various breeds and differing sizes,
some milked by hand,
others by man's dairy devices.
Seven hundred and twenty million sheep.
That one was difficult.
I kept nodding off and going to sleep.
Seven hundred and forty million turkeys.
All highly-strung, and top of their wishlist,
a longer than average life
that lasts way beyond Christmas.
Approximately sixty billion chickens.
Some for their meat and some for their eggs,
countless packets of shrink-wrapped drumsticks
means a lot got no legs.
Four hundred million goats.
Who have to face Mecca and bleat
through trembling throats.
Two point five billion pigs.
Destined to dance on the hook
and jiggle and jig.

Two hundred pandas, and diminishing.
Five thousand lions, slowly extinguishing.
Nine hundred tigers.
And, before finishing...
Some blue whales,
a few snow leopards,
elephants, gorillas, polar bears.
And all the rest of it too.
But who cares about counting on you?

Oh, and by the way...
nearly seven billion meandering humans squirming
over the face of the planet today.
And what of tomorrow?
Perhaps the ten thousand trillion highly-organised ants
will show us the way.