………….The firewood we can point to is consumed. That’s how the flame passes
………….on. And who knows where it all ends?

………….—Zhuangzi III, 6

…………..In the back, Archaeopteryx
…………..hangs, limestone relief in half-darkness,
Her cervical vertebrae bent backward,
……………………….she remains inert,

…………..a shepherd’s crook to the coming birds:
…………..feathers with sauroid claws, she blurred
the furcula in her breathwhile, as if Darwin
……………………….had drawn her from afar.       

…………..Should I swallow my breath in this
…………..monster graveyard? Do her bones miss
flesh wrapping them like gifts? Does the air lay
……………………….lazily on her ribs                                

…………..to hear heartbeats?—All this flux froze
…………..for a moment as keen genes honed
transposons: fire, form and not, whipping up
……………………….indifferent bursts of light.

– Andrew Szilvasy

Author’s Note: Archaeopteryx is such a wonderful fossil, and the one in Berlin is a great image for ekphrasis. The poem is byr a thoddaid, a welsh form that, because of its varying line lengths, seemed ideal for a specimen that was both dinosaur and bird–looking back (literally in the specific fossil) while marching forward.