a few small drops of awareness

 

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”

 

~ John Keats ~

 

Digitally enhanced image created from a photo of a replica of Diplocynodon darwini, an extinct genus of alligatoroid that lived during the Paleocene to middle Miocene 49 million years ago in Europe. It looked very similar to the modern caiman. This particular type lived only in the Eocene epoch, in a swampy freshwater lake near Messel, Germany. Photo taken in May 2016. Replica from the author’s private collection.

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© 2022 nightpoet all rights reserved

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FIRST LIGHT

 

“We all have a dinosaur deep within us just trying to get out.”

 

~ Colin Mochrie ~

 

Digitally enhanced image created from an original photo taken in March 2018.

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© 2018 nightpoet all rights reserved

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THE DISTINCTION

 

“We have invented nothing new.”

 

~ Pablo Picasso ~

(after seeing the cave paintings in Lascaux)

 

Original photo of modern cave art taken outside the Les Combarelles cave in Les Eyzies de Tayac, Dordogne, France in 1985.

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© 2017 nightpoet all rights reserved

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THESE WEATHERED OLD HANDS

 

“Now join your hands and with your hands your hearts.”

 

~ William Shakespeare ~

 

Digitally enhanced image created from an original photo taken in France in June 2006.

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© 2016 nightpoet all rights reserved

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A FEW SMALL DROPS OF AWARENESS

 

“The poetry of the earth is never dead.”

 

~ John Keats ~

 

Photo of a replica of Diplocynodon darwini, an extinct genus of alligatoroid that lived during the Paleocene to middle Miocene 49 million years ago in Europe. It looked very similar to the modern caiman. This particular type lived only in the Eocene epoch, in a swampy freshwater lake near Messel, Germany. Photo taken in May 2016. From the author’s private collection.

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© 2016 nightpoet all rights reserved

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MAMMOTH

 

“As we grow older,

we no longer know whom to awaken,

the living or the dead.”

 

~ Louis-Ferdinand Céline ~

 

Photo of 10,000 to 30,000 year old Mammoth hair found in Siberia taken in Paris in May 2016.

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© 2016 nightpoet all rights reserved

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ICHTHYOSAURUS

 

“A deadened burst of mighty splashes and snorts reached us from afar,

as though an ichthyosaurus had been taking a bath of glitter in the great river.”

 

~ Joseph Conrad ~

 

Digitally enhanced image created from an original photo taken in the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle in Paris in May 2014.

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© 2016 nightpoet all rights reserved

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THIS STARRY EYED DEATH

 

“The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand.”

 

~ Frederick L. Knowles ~

Photo taken in the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, Paris in May 2014.

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© 2016 nightpoet all rights reserved

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BEAST WITHOUT A NAME

 

 

“We are fossils in the making.”

~ Wallace Stegner ~

 

This beast has a name. Photo of a fossilized jaw of a Mosasaur taken in March 2016.

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© 2016 nightpoet all rights reserved

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SCULPTED

 

 

“…let us not overlook the further great fact, that not only does science underlie sculpture, painting, music and poetry, but that science is itself poetic…science opens up realms of poetry where to the unscientific all is a blank…”

~ Herbert Spencer ~

 

 

Photo of fossilized shells, a small dinosaur tooth, fern leaves, a trilobite, sea urchins and ammonites taken in February 2016.

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© 2016 nightpoet all rights reserved

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TRIASSIC TRACKS

 

 

…a small time warp in the Parisian vortex…

 

 

Photo of pigeon tracks preserved in cement taken on the Place Saint-Michel in Paris in August 2015.

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© 2015 nightpoet all rights reserved

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SNAPSHOT

 

 

…our existence as one of countless forms of life

on this planet is only temporary,

despite the vast expanses of time

that have preceded and will follow us,

the planet and its star are finite;

whether we survive

our short performance here or not

is of absolutely no interest to the universe…

 

 

Photo of two small fossilized fish from the Green River Formation in Wyoming, which dates to the Eocene period, between 53.5 and 48.5 million years ago. The fish are approximately 4 to 5 centimeters long.  Photograph of fossils in the author’s personal collection.

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© 2015 nightpoet all rights reserved

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