Archaeopteryx

The trees are awake
The fields in furrow
The brown salty earth
Is dug from the burrow
The rabbit makes his home beneath
Where vineyards grow
The wind has teeth

Then opens out the fertile plane
Where land has lain
The fossils remain
Of so many millenia ago
Epochs, eras our clocks cannot know
Of a time when dinosaurs roamed
Now slip-silted down muddy loam
It fell and slipped down a loamy flume
Within minutes the flow had covered its plume

Archaeopteryx half bird, half beast
The link between these two disparate cleats

For the benefit of those who don't know
this dinosaur had feathers
His beak did crow
Even from the other parts we know
This bird had claws from arm to toe

Unlike anything that had gone before
His skeleton opened up many a genetic door
The missing link, the piece of the chain
That would tie down Prehistoric Adam to Cain

What memories of a terror-bound world
Would be released if we could read its skull?
If the tracks and times, and minutes
Were laid down like tree rings
Or the braille-like markings of a limpets shell

Of what world might Archaeopteryx speak?
One of unimaginable beauty, one where terror peaks?
Palm trees as tall as two story buildings
Jungles alive with giant insects and snakes
All creatures inhabiting a godless ocean
With razor sharp teeth leaving devastating wakes

How might he have lived?
What aerobatic skill?
To evade the predators clutch,
Or to make his own deadly kill
How did he hone his technique?
Where was his school?
At what did he pique?
Were there extremes in plenitude?
Mountainous relief?
Did he witness an earthquake divide and fold?
Did a volcanic eruption turn his world cold?
Were there rains for days, did it hail stones?
Was there room for beauty or mere survival alone?
When and how did the butterfly come to be?
How did such a delicate beauty from the beast flee?
What of the flower, why is it here?
How can an hour be heard to chime in its ear?
What possible claim do we have to this earth?
How can we name it ours?
By whose power do we say we have worth?