Fossilized Flashbacks

Little Lesothosaurus,

Lithe and light,

Leaping and loping through lush leaves like lightning.

Spikey Stegosaurus,

Spiney and sheathed,

Your shield as strong as steel shaped from bone.

Browsing Brachiosaurus,

Bestriding and booming,

Boasting about the boundless bounty above.

Tremendous Tyrannosaurus,

Towering and terrorizing,

Never tiring of your tenacious trail of torment.

Traveling Triceratops,

Tempered and toothless,

Traversing the tracts of terrain without trepidation.

Vile Velociraptor,

Vicious and vulpine,

So violent and visceral vying with the vulnerable.

From Triassic to Cretaceous,

No matter your size,

You were all persistent and pugnacious.

Resilient reptiles,

Legendary lizards.

What it must have felt like to run free,

To graze as far as the eye could see,

To stand as strong and as tall as trees.

What it must have felt like to gaze up at night,

To be dazzled by trillions of stars so bright,

To witness the Earth in all of her might.

What would you think of that same Earth now?

Would you be aghast, angry, or appalled?

To see that it has been defaced and depleted,

Littered and looted,

Polluted and poisoned,

Tainted and tarnished.

We humans do not deserve our place,

Perhaps we never will,

But you, great dinosaurs, are honored with eternal grace.