PALEONTOLOGY
by Chris Clarke
"What is it that sets us apart," she asked,
"from sunset or sierra?
What is the line between ourselves
and the terrain from which we come?"
He thought he knew, but something in her eyes
transfixed him in a way he knew too well.
Deep and dark and wet they stuck him fast.
In parts of California, long ago,
impressive monsters ambled in the hills:
placid armored sloths two people tall,
cats with teeth as long as boning knives,
dogs the size of bears. Now and again,
a glint of water tempted them, or else
a furry piece of meat held strangely still,
and only after the imprudent pounce
would the tar entomb them.
Now, the graduate students pick their bones.
When the land thus asserts your membership
in the vast assemblage of dust and bark,
of feather, fur and rock in which we live,
it's best not to struggle overmuch.
The land is patient, yet insistent.
Fighting off the tar will muss your hair.
Paleontologists an era hence
will find your clothes awry. Embarrassing!
Far better just to let oneself be swallowed
in all-consuming pitch, placidly slurped
into the balm of Tertiary ages.
That's what her eyes felt like, he thought;
a sudden lack of individual
identity: nothing sets us apart
one from the other, nor from the land around.
Chris Clarke is editor of Earth Island Journal in San Francisco. He grew up hunting fossils in the streams of central and western New York and has lived in the Bay Area for the past 23 years. Now his home is in Pinole, California, a bedroom community near Oakland that has retained much of its 150-year-old small town character.
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A NOTE TO THE POETS OUT THERE
I'm interested in considering your "poems of place" for publication in The Middlewesterner's "Saturday's Poem" feature; send two or three of your best in the body of an e-mail addressed to [email protected] . Put "Saturday's Poem" in the subject line. Then be patient. I will get back to you about whether I'll use your work or not. Send along a short biographical note and information about where your books can be purchased and I'll include that when your poem runs. There's no payment involved for having your work appear in "Saturday's Poem," but the feature is seen by some few high class readers. Click here for complete index of and access to "Saturday's Poems" poems published prior to September 18, 2004.
Bravo! My favorite line:
"Far better just to let oneself be swallowed
in all-consuming pitch, placidly slurped
into the balm of Tertiary ages"
Posted by: susurra | November 14, 2004 at 07:02 PM