epitaph
Explanation
This comic imagines a scenario in which cube-shaped rocks are a sentient species deserving of preservation. A geologist (or naturalist) explains to a visitor that when rocks undergo enough geological pressure, they enter a "bildungsroman" phase and compose their greatest poetry, contributing to a "special edition" of verse. The visitor observes that the poems are simple but possess a "poignant beauty."
The joke escalates when the narrator describes the rocks' behavior in increasingly anthropomorphic terms -- they "sparkle," they engage in "gallant competition for the right to reproduce," and they apparently need conservation efforts. The visitor, initially charmed, finally breaks character and asks: "Hey, can I get some of these rocks to fill out my rock garden?" -- revealing that his interest was never scientific or sentimental, but purely decorative.
The humor operates on multiple levels. First, it satirizes nature documentaries and conservation rhetoric by applying their tropes to inanimate objects, exposing how easily we romanticize nature when it is narrated with sufficient gravitas. Second, the punchline deflates all the poetic buildup: no matter how much emotional language you wrap around rocks, someone will still just want them for landscaping. There is also a subtle dig at how humans selectively value nature -- we'll wax poetic about endangered species while simultaneously treating the natural world as a resource for our own aesthetic pleasure.