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Poets and artists

The Fossil Man

for Graham Worton

He asks us what we’ve found:
we tip our fossils in his open palm.

He knows his stuff,
points out corals, bones & shells
in Latin and plain English,
transmitting human warmth
to those old stones.

What time stripped back
to nondescript remains,
he resuscitates:
calcite dissolves, ligaments restore;
bivalves rehinge; joints restring
skeletons rearticulate,
rolling and rolling over his heart-line.

It’s all so vivid –
he tells us to cup our hands
to catch the striped & rose-red,
ozone smelling, wriggling,
writhing mass of sea-life he’s recreated:
his present to us from the past.