26 February 2006

Worldlines on the Tree of Life

flatten the worldmap:




then stack a billion map layers
one for each year

each continent forms a
continent-shaped column

(the continents drift
only slowly)

each continent-column encloses
the leaky bush of its particular
subset of species

the ocean-columns, theirs

an individual's worldline
tracing thru
a tiny sliver
of the whole