Paleontology Meets Robert Frost: A Poem

[DPS Ammonite]

Here is a parody of Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” that points out my fossil and rock collecting philosophy. Roads are good to take you to the areas that few people search, especially the creek beds. Remember, I like to leave no stone unturned.

 

I challenge all TFF members (especially @snolly50)  to send in your paleontology related original poems. Consider your own version of Frost's poem. 

 

The Roads Not Taken

 by John, AKA DPS Ammonite

 

Two roads diverged in a rocky wood,

And not sorry to travel either one

And being an adventurer, long I stood

And looked up the nearby creek bed as far as I could

To see the rocks glistening in the sun.

 

I took the downstream side, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better rocks

Because it was fossil rich and wanted wear;

Paleozoic creatures preserved there

stood out in massive limestone blocks.

 

The up and downstream sides equally lay

In rocks no one had collected.

Oh, I kept the upstream side for another day,

Knowing fossils that occurred that way,

should not be left uninspected.

 

I shall be telling this with never a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the creek bed nearby,

And that has made all the difference.

 

[Macrophyseter]

[snolly50]

@DPS Ammonite

 

It's Frosty in Here
snolly sure ain't no Robert Frost.

snolly's syntax often tortured, scrambled, lost.

But he's been on untrod paths,

through woods dark and deep;

hearing God's creature's steps,

as they gambol or they creep.

Frost may wax eloquent of paths taken or regretted;

but snolly knows both path's joy and pain.

For that, he is indebted.

[DPS Ammonite]

Thanks snolly50. It takes much more talent than I have to create a new poem than to imitate an old one.

[snolly50]

1 hour ago, DPS Ammonite said:

takes much more talent

"Talent?" snolly may have a dearth; but messing with words provides him mirth.

[Tidgy's Dad]

Frost is not my idiom. 

I'll try a version of a famous poem by a quite different writer. :

 

THE PTEROSAUR 

 

by Tidgy's Dad.

 

One warm June, the dead of night, as I prepped my trilobite,

Using pin vice, and loupe until my bleary eyes were raw -

           While I focused, concentrating, suddenly there came a scraping,

As though it were a chalkboard grating, grating through my old lab door.

"Who the heck is that?" I mumbled, "Scraping at my old lab door?      

            Don't they know it's half-past four?"

 

The wind that night, a nice sirocco, blowing through northern Morocco,

And swirling grains of cast off matrix danced upon the wooden floor. 

            How i wished that it were Monday,- rather than an endless Sunday,

Trying hard to have a fun day - no fun without my Mosasaur-

For the unfaked Kem Kem partial which was named my Mosa jaw. 

Had been pinched the day before.

 

And the thoughts, dreams, nightmares of the merchants with their fake wares,

Gripped me - stripped me of my hopes of a replacement dinosaur.                               (I know!) 

            So that now with  pin a- poking, I was feeling unlike joking,

          "Can't be the postman with a fossil parcel at my old lab door,

Not the postman at this time awaiting access at my old lab door. 

After all, it's half-past four." 

 

In a while i became quite pissy , and shouted out with voice quite hissy,

"Monsieur!" I said, "or Madame!, I didn't mean to be such a bore.

          But I've been focused on my rocks, I'm just putting on my socks,

          I didn't hear your gentle knocks, you knocking on my old lab door.

I wasn't sure if i were dreaming " - here I opened wide the door

Nothing there at half-past four. 

 

Down the stairwell I was squinting, up the staircase, eyes unstinting, 

Thinking thoughts that no palaeontologist had ever thought before. 

         But the silence was complete, nothing outside in the street,

         Except one phrase murmured in a beat, which was the dreaded, "Mosa jaw?" 

Just this I muttered and the walls reflected back the words, "Mosa jaw!". 

Well, crikey, it was half-past four. 

 

Back into my laboratory, thinking i should PM Lori,

Before long I heard a scratching rather louder than of yore.

       "Golly!" I said. " Golly, is that the blinking window  this time? 

I'll have a peek and think of the next rhyme, which is becoming quite a chore.

Much like waiting for the postman it's becoming quite a chore.

But don't forget, it's half-past four.

 

Here I pulled the window string, and in there fell a scaly thing,

In there trod a bony Pterosaur i'd thought extinct a while before.

             He didn't bother to say, "Hi", but just fluttered slowly by,

             And as if he cared not a jot for I, he landed above my old lab door.

Sat upon a bust of Darwin just above my old lab door.

Squatted and blinked at half-past four.

 

Then this green not-bird amazing, me into some thoughtful phrasing

Due to the extinct expression which must be against nature's law.

"Crumbs, you look so thin and weak , you " I said, "I should trim your beak,

Rare and precious reptile wandering  far from some Cretaceous shore-

What you are doing in modern Morocco so far from a Mesozoic shore ! 

Quoth the Pterosaur,  nothing but "Caw!" 

 

Of course it couldn't understand, or was it being underhand? 

It's answer, like a crow or was it just its vocab was so poor? 

           For I know you must agree, no other person, only me,

       Had ever had a flying reptile sat above their old lab door. 

Not bird, not non-avian dinosaur, upon Darwin over my old lab door.

Especially at half-past four.

 

So the Pterosaur was perching, maybe for words was vainly searching,

Had said just one word, or was he shy and retiring, nothing more?

Nothing extra did he add, and really i was rather glad,

Until I uttered , rather sad, " Other fossils have left me before - 

I'm sure tomorrow he will quit here, as my jaw has done before."

The Pterosaur, he just said, "Caw!" 

 

This one-sided conversation, merely for your information,

" Would you like to be photographed for The Fossil For......

Um, what? I am going bonkers, would you like a game of conkers?

And then we can do a photo shoot , please do! Oh I do implore! 

Then I can become pretty famous, so non-birdy I implore!

You just sit there and say, "Caw!"

 

The Pterosaur was quite bewitching, and he had my fingers twitching,

But then Tidgy wandered out in front of beast and bust and door.

So I looked down at my tortoise and thought of all the things she'd taught us,

                  About kindness, patience and sweeping up the floor.

Not like this anachronism, ,ripped through time's schism now high up above the floor.

What did it mean by, "Caw!" ?

 

So I stood there thoughtfully, while darling Tidgy looked at me,

Surely thinking, "What's for tea?" And the Pterosaur said no more,

Tidgy blinked and stretched her neck, she knew that daddy felt a wreck,

Watching the creature crouching there as if awaiting an encore,

Yes, boldly crouching and waiting as though for me to perform my last encore. 

As if I would, at half-past four!

 

It was getting cold, fusion or fission, colder than the Ordovician,

The rip in time effecting changes as time's fabric itself it tore

"Monster!" I yelled." Are you late Triassic? Or more likely perhaps Upper Jurassic?, 

Yet this problem's just a classic - problem of logic like the lost Mosa Jaw.

This poem itself it could be a classic, like the tale of my lost Mosa Jaw.

Quoth the Pterosaur, "Caw!" 

 

"Batface!" I said, " You may be Troodon's delight! But I name thee nauseous coprolite! 

Whether a test sent by TFF admin, or whether Nimravis hopes somehow to score,

TheLivingDead, VTinNorthAB, Monica or JohnBrewer maybe? 

                  Does Caldigger  me annoy, or Devonian Digger, I'm unsure ? 

                  Bobby - is it Piranha, or ynot?  - tell me - tell me - I'm so unsure! 

Quoth the Ptesosaur, "Caw!" 

 

"Brachiopod!" I said, " You may be PeatBurns' delight! But I name thee a broken belemnite! 

By the Stratigraphic Column - by the fossils we all adore - 

Tell this poor Welshman who is so much abused, who is it who's done this, i'm feeling confused.

i shall locate and hold forever the specimen known as the Mosa Jaw.

Find the unique and not composited at all specimen known as the Mosa Jaw. "

Quoth the Pterosaur, "Caw!" 

 

" Right that's the last thing you'll ever squawk ! " I yelled, " You evil and vile skeletal hawk!

Get thyself back to the Mesozoic and the dark Cretaceous' far shore!

            Leave no scale as a symbol,  not enough breath for a thimble, 

            Leave me to reassemble my thoughts, Go! For thee I abhor! 

Take your premaxilla out of my heart, and your wing membranes from my door! 

Quoth the Pterosaur, "Caw!" 

 

And the Pterosaur never slouching, still is crouching, still is crouching,

On the marble bust of Darwin a tad above my old lab door; 

And his stare is cold and raw, like a piece of chunkosaur,

And the tortoise under him walks slowly, sadly out the door.

And my spirit torn and broken, left with everything unspoken. 

What to do? Half past no more. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

[Miocene_Mason]

Though Poe is a fellow Marylander, some of the best poetry comes in the style of an English Bard:

Amateur Fossil Hunter’s Soliloquy

 

To fossil hunt, or not to fossil hunt: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous tides,
Or to take arms against a sea of fossils,
And by opposing let the other collectors get to them? To fossil hunt, to look for fossils,
No more; and by “fossil-hunting” to say we end
The fossil withdraw and the thousand of reminders of the fossils
That the fossil forum posts, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To fossil hunt, to look for fossils,
To look for fossil: perchance to find fossils? Ay, there’s the rub;
For in those cliffs, beaches and talus slopes what finds may come?
When we have finished our combing of the beach and our splitting of the shale,
Must give us a prize? There’s the respect
That makes calamity of not fossil hunting,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of crumbly shale,
The land owner’s hatred, the proud man’s Epic meg,
The pangs of a broken fossil, the law’s dislike of fossil hunters,
The insolence of the tides, and the finds that the unworthy take,
When he himself might go hunting every week find an epic fossil? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat without fossils,
But that the dread of not finding any at all,
The nightmare from whose bourn
No traveller doth not fear, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others (I.E. not finding fossils)?
Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of fossil hunting
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of not,
And enterprises of great potential fossil finds and awesome fossil-related experiences
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. But ya know, I heard there’s a nice site just south of there...

 

[Bobby Rico]

I have worked for years with a great poet. The themes we have covered are environmental changes both sort term and over millions of years., opposites and abandoned. This is one of his poems  and a couple of my works. They are not companion pieces. Hope you like them. 

 

 

The shingle roars

as the blade crashes into the rock 

 

a spade through shingle 

laid down over the garden bed

before we came here 

 

crash and hiss

roar and recede