The Echinoid Ball

At the end of one such lengthy day
When papers and rocks had turned to naught,
The janitor’s broom chased dust away,
I found myself in frustrated thought.

My fossils all about me stroon,
But each their answers blurring.
My eyes were heavy, and sleep was soon
While about me things were stirring.

I watched in awe as one by one
With spines upright, the echinoids danced
In circles and swirls, a patterned run;
My eyes enrapt, entranced.

And then as soon, began to move
Brachiopods large and others small
Lined with militaristic groove
And marched, en valve, held tall.

The snails by then had found their feet
And wrote in patterns of fossil dust,
Their tapestry notes in spirals neat
In gray shale and hematite rust.

The bivalves, too, came out to play
And frolicked around the border
Betwixt and between the echinoid fray
Upsetting the brachiopod order.

The brachs were quite consterned at this
With bivalves dancing all around,
But just regrouped at each remiss.
The snails to their spirals bound.

When slowly, stately, from the right,
A ballet of crinoids swaying;
Each one in time, their cirrals tight,
Between the pelecypods playing.

And then the band began their song
With conulariid and rugosan horns,
An entire drumming tabulate throng
And a bryozoan-harp adorned. 

The music sank behind my eyes
And deep in my ears, the echinoids danced.
The maddening crescendo began to rise,
Each to its purpose entranced. 

The echinoids twirled, the crinoids leapt!
While pelecypods crazed, the brachs marched fast!
And all in pattern, the gastropods swept
When the band gave their finale blast. 

And slowly then the music faded;
The fossils, spent, from their gala ball,
Crept back to their places, sated,
To drawers and cabinets, one and all.

But one last conulariid pipe
Stayed behind, not ready for its bed,
Gave one last song in revelry-type;
‘Twas when I woke, and lifted my head.

And where I left them, my fossils around.
I laughed, for it was but a jest,
Or a simple dream!  But then I found
A conulariid on my desk.

Copyright 2003 by me, the official copyright and the source are here: my dissertation, chapter 5.