Mass Extinctions

Topiary dinosaurs

Topiary dinosaurs in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle

National Poetry Month continues, with two dinosaur poems.

Mass Extinctions 1

Who seek a lesson in Babel,
consider the next confoundment:
the bones of overweening man nosed
at by some nameless beast, as we
pick over blameless dinosaurs.

[October 25, 1994]

Mass Extinctions 2

A rip in the sky, a roar:
impact of a meteor –
shroud of iridium dust
on the dusk of Dinosaur.

What thick dust does now remand
to the sod and soil and sand
the heirs of Cretaceous dead? –
the human tread on the land.

[March 23, 1995]

About these poems

“Mass Extinctions 1″ is in a simple form called octosyllabic (eight syllables per line).  “Mass Extinctions 2″ is in a Welsh from called an englyn cyrch. Both poems rely on well-known scientific theories about the several mass extinctions prior to the one over which we humans are currently presiding, the most famous being that of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous. Our turn next.

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