I wasn’t going to try to write a poem based on Juliet’s prompt – fun that it was – until I saw Reth’s Lesothosaurus. His inspired me to Google Arizonasaurus, and gracious. There is a northern Arizona dino. Well not really a dinosaur, but an ancient critter that looks like a really big croc with a sailtail. Not a lot of information on them, given they are around 240 million years old. Recently the creature was declassified from dino to “…an earliest Middle Triassic rauisuchian, it shows that the Pseudosuchia-Ornithosuchia split (i.e., the croc-line and bird-line split) had to have occurred prior to the beginning of the Middle Triassic.”
“Cool critter”, according to paleontologists. And one thing led to another. As these things usually do, for me.
Arizonasaurus
* * *
Places I Know Only by Stony Postcards
Your elongated neural spines
make me crave tropical lush
in deserts’ far reaches not the fear
old and primordial: Crocodiles
swaying head back and grinding teeth
against flesh and blood – swarms
of mandibled birds swooping dark.
Majestic melodies, ferns and lampreys.
Armored sturgeon, mugilid
fish and Hochstetter’s
frogs.The coelacanth, a Martialis
heureka. Amborella. We are
alive, in dreams of sleep.
* * *
Find other responses to dinosaurs and monsters here.
Cool critters who link our present to the past: The coelacanth, Martialis heureka, Amborella.
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on Oct 12th, 2008 at 1:50 am
Killer ending, Deb. Very nicely done.
on Oct 12th, 2008 at 2:38 am
Wasn’t that fun to write? It is that much fun to read.
on Oct 12th, 2008 at 3:25 am
You recreate that swampy primordial time so well. Several lines that really grabbed my imagination, like the crocs and the mandibled birds. Great poem, deb.
on Oct 12th, 2008 at 4:27 am
. . . swarms
of mandibled birds swooping dark.
This year’s best use of alliteration! Marvelous lines.
on Oct 12th, 2008 at 10:27 am
mandibled birds…love it! and i’m with dave, the ending is breathtaking!
p.s. thanks for visiting me earlier
on Oct 12th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I had never heard of Arizonasaurus before, thanks for digging it up and bringing it to life!
on Oct 12th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Wonderful, chewy words. I’m looking forward to coming back.
on Oct 13th, 2008 at 1:08 am
Wow… and here I thought you were going in a COMPLETELY different direction with this post (given the title)…
http://www.zazzle.com/mccain_dinosaur_shirt-235383589849552399
on Oct 13th, 2008 at 4:10 am
I love the way you worked in all those ’scientific’ names.
Well researched!
on Oct 13th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Thanks for reading, everyone. It’s nice to have you visit!
Do check out Harold’s link. If I could post a copy of it I would, but it is copyrighted. And fu-u-unny.
on Oct 27th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Wow. Love this.