Artwalk POETRY and ART

THE SKELETAL REMAINS

These ancient bones tell an intricate story,
drawn out of land roots that took to water like
an air-born fish thirsting for immersion.

Tell of you, Ichthyosaur, prehistoric denizen
of Earth’s oceans, outworn traveller
of her seven greatest seas.

Reptilian dolphin to the dinosaurs, you
were ripple and speed to the weightier beast’s
deliberate mode of locomotion: an outburst

of joy, to offset the serious work of survival.
“Fish-lizard,” large-eyed diver of the deep,
you held firmly to a fluid position

eon upon eon, then swam into oblivion
on the downward current of a sea change.
What remains is this: your history writ

in exuberant articulations of bone—vertebral
fugues & extravagantly jointed multiple fingers
of unparalleled manoeuvrability