Paleo 101

Oh little one,

little homo sapien

asleep in your crib

listen not to dreams

in your head

but to the planet’s past,

far below the firmament.

A felt and twine imitation

of me and my kind

swirls in the dizzy mobile

above your head.

Your paleo

ma and pa dug up

my dusty old bones

on a work site

far away so

pray tell

listen to the caw

and bray

that echoes

from the ghost

voices of my

oxygen rich world, for

in the blink of an

infant eye

you will be sixteen years old

and start to drive,

pumping the fossilized fuels,

the amber blood

of my brethren

into carbonic

engines to make

wheels turn and jive.

When your teachers

teach you about

geologic time,

know that your species’

time will come.

Unlike mine,

your little ice age

will be a device of

your own making.

When you learn

how dark and hot

the world becomes

know that your kind

could have left our

graves unturned

and wheels unburned,

the atmosphere

yet with ozone.

When you are grown

and become a teacher

with students of your own,

and they ask of you of the mysteries—

“What color were they?”

“Did they had have feathers or scales?”

Tell them that I

was deep violet,

had neither feathers

nor scales,

but notes.