Human Geology
"Of all the days in a calendar year, the dinosaurs went extinct Christmas Eve,
and humans started roaming the earth at 8:30 P.M. on New Year’s Eve."
Geological Text Book Aid – Susan Lewis, Carolle College, Wisconsin.
Grief is carboniferous, all that coral compacted
beneath my feet by the earth’s geological flower press.
The Derbyshire delta unfolds
meadows of cartilage and bone.
To the west, I can see Jodrell Bank,
an upturned bowl listening for a dead star’s pulse.
Loss is millstone grit, Wildboar Clough
knuckled clean by wind and rain,
its language is measured in eons; charting the rise
and fall of ice sheets, dinosaurs, now ourselves.
And our life together is a green-eyed blink,
or two snails in the shadow of a boot.
Hand me a chisel and hammer,
let me carve A&S forever
into the hide of the Cow and Calf,
whilst I watch the slow passage of the Wharfe.
Anne Caldwell
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