“Time heals everything,” mum used to say.

“Just wait, bide your time, it will soon be our day.”

But the price of our suffering’s so much to pay.

Sixty five million years.

All things go in cycles, biologists tell us.

Won’t be long, say the gods, and we wait til they bell us.

But best part of ten eons, and you can’t even smell us.

I roar, and yet nobody hears.

We ruled the whole world, one for all, all for one.

Now I sit on a rock and I soak up the sun,

Eating lichen and bugs in what passes for fun.

I hunger for when our time nears.

They say a volcano or comet explosion

Sparked our decline, the great lizards’ erosion

But you’ll soon be gone through internal corrosion

Your species will die out in tears

Your buildings and cities will not look so grand

When they’ve fallen to dust, when they’re no more than sand

And then we will be here, and we’ll take back our land

We will realise your darkest of fears.

So I bask in this sunshine and take it all in

And my mouth has grown wide from a permanent grin

’Cos it won’t be long now, iguanas will win,

After sixty five million years.