Not many days it takes
Of a life measured in billions,
For the rain-swamped earth
All plashy and sodden –
Verdant and plumped –
To crackle and split;
Patterned ground, polygonally divided
Moisture sweated out –
Mud transformed –
Pulled in drum-tight
To make nature’s hexagons.
The sound of the lapwing, trilling
arrr-rit at rit at rit
And the lark –
More pterodactyl than passerine –
Swoops vertiginously up high;
Not the only threads it seems
Back to a lost world; Pangaea, Gondwana –
Broken bracken; thick banks of nettle
Cow parsley, hazel, ivy –
Swiped and flattened
Beaten and brashed –
And below, stamped in the earth,
The mystery –
A transient fossil, a brand of sorts –
Man? Beast? Monster?
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