humming a music
distant from notes I might string together
late for school
oblivious to everything
but the pauses in his song.
Yesterdayleaves slipped on the wind
matted they cling to the red-brick heels
of black rubber boots
and hold on desperately
for any hope a boy can give
with careful stepshe turns
avoids cracks worms and weeds
until the plastic of his hat is lifted in the air
spinning him again
on the uneven sidewalkhe scrapes summer from his sole.
He believes in dinosaursnot only that they once roamed freely
(as cats between fenceposts)
but that they still live
fiercely
in schoolyards
and sleep
he’s seen the footprints
and will show you
if you let him
great herds of terrible horns and teeth
breaking trails to the wonder of
where they are in the day
Extincthis father says.
Imagine Stegosaurus:
a walnut brainsteering the bulk of an elephant
ancient and awkward herdscircling to protect the young
not an exact science
a herbivorea relative of birds
the power and balanceof a long spiked tail
intriguea protruding plate
solar attraction to the cold-blooded morning
the ugly likelinessof its expression.
Consider a conversation with myself
mumbling on about the mesozoic
the rise of flowering plants
the death of the dinosaur.
Balance your diet.
Eat a vegetarian.
Sixty-five million years
the only wisdom for carnivores
and not an acceptable answer.
Someone saysNot this Monday
but Monday next...
and I wait
through an ice-age
and a drought
and no one saysThe dinosaur
lovely as the worlds first flower
and I am aware of more than emptiness
or the want of fallen lovers.
I see the sound of the pausein a child’s hummed notes
the invisible
beginning in the lungs
and fading with the sunset
bewildered under starsI blunder backwards through millennia
and know only the magic
of believing the impossible.
The rain stops
for the last time maybe
the wind
singing a wrong and difficult key
leaves museum skeletons
bleached and marrow less branches
pealed bark
the discovery of fire
the winda spiral in the corner of a schoolyard
a challenge to the freedom of leaves
why is the Stegosaurus my favourite dinosaur?
watching a small boy
late in no
hurry
I’m lost in a lifetime of ages
and I know
it has something to do
with the danger
of the tail.
