A small globe spinning about itself and running around a larger sphere, a hot ball of predominantly gas.
The Planet, had Life - extravagant in its numbers and variety. There were jumping spiders at the Chilly tops of the highest moutains and sulfur-eating worms in the hot vents gushing up through ridges on the ocean floors. There were beings that could live only in concentrated sulfuric acid, and beings that were destroyed by concentrated sulfuric acid; organisms that were poisoned by oxygen, and oranisms that could survive only in oxygen, that actually breathed the stuff.
A particular form, a lifeform with a modicum of intelligence, had recently spread across the planet. They had outposts on the ocean floors and in low-altitude orbit around the planet. They had swarmed to every nook and cranny of their small 'word'. The boundary that marked transition of night into day was sweeping westward, and following its motion millions of these beings ritually performed their morning ablutions. They donned greatcoats and dhotis' drank brews of coffee, tee, or dandelion; drove bicycles, automobiles, or oxen; and briefly contemplated school assignments, prospects for spring planting, and the fate of the world.
This world is beautiful, life is precious and the whole period of 'living' beings much less the one dominated by these intelligent forms is but a tick of a minute hand in the clock that is the evolution of the planet.
Earth, is the planet. We dont know of any other that's anything like it. It's our home and it's our responsibility to try to keep it they it was intended to be, at least as much as we can, for the future generations - not just the future generations of humans but those of the jumping spiders and the sulfur-eating worms and the like; at least those that survive in the nature and that are spared by us.
(Heavily inspired by Carl Sagan, and then muddled it with my thoughts)
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