Paleontological Poetry

"The Spine" by Michael Spence (collected in The Spine) [hat-tip to Vasha for sending this along]

"The fossilised vertebrae of a large dolphin-like reptile dating from 150 million years ago were recently discovered in this mining town." -- Australian travel brochure

The ichthyosaur,
Like ancient water

It flashed through,
Dried to dust. A few

Pieces of spine
Dug from a mine

At Coober Pedy
Are the only

Remains. They glint
Iridescent

Blue, purple;
Bits of gold fill

Every crack.
The Jurassic

Faded: the reptile
Changed to opals.

Thirty-three
Vertebrae

Like those here --
One for each year

I've lived -- link
What I think

To how I move.
The chord in their groove

Sends what lightning
I have forking

Through my hands
Into the land.

If my traces reach
The distant beach

Of the future,
The bones I stare

At hold my wish:
To start as flesh

And end as jewel.
The line of fossils

Burns -- each gem
A star in the stem

Of the Southern Cross.
We gain by loss.

In truth, the "opal ichthyosaur" is really a new genus of pliosaur, Umoonasaurus demoscyllus. Details about it can be found in Kear, B.P.; Schroede, N.I.; Lee, M.S.Y. (2006) "An archaic crested plesiosaur in opal from the Lower Cretaceous high-latitude deposits of Australia." Biology Letters, Vol. 2 (4), pp. 615-619