Pleistocene Swamp

Give me a spear and a primitive bow
drop me in a pleistocene swamp
and let me hunt the eryops and meloposauraus
I wish to eat a soft-shelled turtle
on a bed of prehistoric spinach.
Send me to the tar pits
when they were fresh and hot
I'll taunt the dying dire wolves
howling and flailing in their petrol graves.
Let me be drowned in a crackling storm of ash
streaming from a mountaintop, split and spewing death
I 'll be buried beside a giant palm, immortalized in stone
I can die 10 million years before you, happy
if I never see a car
an asphalt spread or
hear a horn or engine clack.

Written in the UM Museum of Natural History 9/29/09