The Living

Abandoned World, my heart entwined
The freedom of a foothill
Night clouds Earth’s beauty so sublime
‘twas there I found a fossil

A beast so hard to visualise
Now long since past extinct
Say grace, it once could mobilise
Crude notions, not succinct

An age ago, in woodland realm
Its measure in its droppings
Run through its meal would overwhelm
Its windy inner workings

Some giant jaws ate from those trees
No doubt those beings were living
When luck ran out they failed to breathe
Now preyed upon this killing

Hatched from an egg, to procreate
They played their mating game
Whose drive it was to raise birth rate
And dominate, their aim

Survey with taste and touch and sound
The gift of sight can tell
The dangers in the World around
Plus pain, plus sense of smell

To forage is life’s daily strive
Slim chance of food, malnourished
Against all odds to stay alive
Most perished but some flourished

These wonders made those creatures grow
The greater and the larger
On mountain chain and on plateau
All canny, shrewd and smarter

Unseen fate so strange a truth
Embed in rock submerged
The triumph is to seek the proof
And study what's preserved