A Found Poem by Beverly Stock
© Alena Fayankova | Dreamstime.com
With tears gushing in his eyes
An Ichthyosaurus(1) swims. The Plesiosaurus(2), the elder
Starts swimming after him.
The Plerodactylus(3) even
comes back in from the sea,
“Things can’t go on in this way,”
They heard Ichthyosaurus say.
Raging saurus tempers and bad saurus blood,
Were mighty but extinguished in a sudden flood.
Even the Saurians(4) died too, that awful day,
Of course, the devil they then had to pay.
Who was it, then, this tale did write?
T’was found as a fossil album leaf
Upon a coprolite. (5)
My poem, "Upon a Coprolite,” is my adaptation of the poem “The Ichthyosaurus,” by Joseph Victor von Scheffel, 1826-1886, as translated by Charles G. Leland, who was an American humorist and folklorist, 1824-1903. The original nine stanza poem is in the public domain.
(1) Ichthyosaurs are large extinct marine reptiles.
(2) Plesiosaurus was a plesiosaur, a type of marine reptile.
(3) Pterodactylus is an extinct genus of pterosaurs. Members are commonly known as pterodactyls.
(4) Sauria is the clade containing the most recent common ancestor of archosaurs (such as crocodilians, dinosaurs,
(5) A coprolite is fossilized feces.
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