The woods of Arcady are dead
and over is their antique song
a cloud of gas , a nebula
a nursery of stars
H , haitch EE , and scattered dust
one particle attracts another - they collide
seven minutes - is it long ?
a slice of all eternity
A quarry in Bavaria was once a salty pond
what fell in it ?
a cat-size dinosaur
another here - oh look !
this one has feathers - oops !
long pinions from its spindly finger
and all along its tail : - the
Archeopteryx , the
ancient bird , this
fallen angel
flat , its
splat and wondrous
fronds a leaping through a door
Oh plumey Death ! oh wicked tadpole child
A split of rock reveals this print
of bones and feathers ,
how is it that Darwin’s proof
looks so much like a miracle ?
A messenger of gods .
She flies above the warring tides
where the lumbering armies clash
with spikes that tear and teeth that gash
the scaley armour of their backs
The ancient bird with angel wings
flies to the sun and does not fall .
Below , the ancient warring kings
both die, the end
to all their glory , red
the swamp , their fate
is gory , what remains
is broken trees and fleeting stains .
Their battle adding to the pages
of the carbon Book of Ages
A speck of dust afar away
is ionised by a cosmic ray
and in this”Plus”state pulls reverse
speck across the Universe
Two specks , some more and they’ll become
a grain. and gather in apace
and in this way , in cloud afar
a speck , two specks , become a star .
Crushing itself within its spin
the H becoming Helium
and round this star , the dust congeals
and flattens into spinning wheels
then clumping up , becoming worlds
some hot some cold but one blest mild
and water-drenched
will generate a form of slime
which by a slow unsteady climb
lifts up itself and takes to flight
I must be gone , there is a grave
Where daffodil and lily wave .
Beside the grave there is a pond
half heated by the nearest sun
and in the soft Arcadian dawn
across the pond a ripple stirs
the flatness and a fishy snout
breaks surface and across the lawn
a creature crawls , its proto-lung
is sucking in the morning air
It gulps it down , its eyes rotate ,
The first terrestial vertebrate .
Its jaws close on a gnat
And we are stardust - what are we ?
FROM stars - OF stars - TO stars - we
For there is nothing Else to be
The woods of Arcady are over here
Their antique joy lies spread around
the hapless faun is underground
birds sing above his rotting corpse
it took a while , she lost her teeth
and learned to sing and now
I flit , a humble linnet . Is this Space
cold ?
It may be , but we’re living in it