Archeology in 2323

The precision digger had exposed the layers
From the site believed to have been populated by many,
And the archaeologists stood back to postulate
On the meaning of the totemic record stacked before them.

Modes of transport they theorised, a sedimentary stack of metal,
Abandoned when their fuel source was eventually depleted.
But the real puzzle was the plinth on which they reposed
Organic in makeup, but surely too tall to have lived.

“Colleagues, I believe we have discovered the remains of a tree,
That the archive suggests may have once been plentiful.
Such trees were the oxygen generators of the pre-AI age,
That sustained a population we understand to have been in the billions”.

But that’s far too many lungs for the anaemic air of today,
Which barely clings to this forsaken brown planet.
Vacated but for the researchers and historians working,
On this first day of August 2323.