Creatures Surrounded By Stone

And you shall eat dust
All the days of your life

Genesis 3:14

Surrounded by stone, buried, dinosaurs move slowly
but they’re moving, coming out of the stone, into air,
as scientists assist them out of their buried lair
and clean them and study them as if they are holy.

The bones preach in the church of paleontology
and scientists puzzle out the parables, compare
the epistles and test the truths their gospels declare
to fossil hunters hunting fossil theology.

When professors and students dig into the Badlands
on their knees, bending their whole body into the task
of rescuing from the rock another precious bone,

do they ever ask—do they ever look past their hands
and wonder, maybe just for fun—do they ever ask,
What if there’s a reason the creatures are in the stone?