Recovered from Our Dreamt-of History
Horned Salamander (Ambystoceratum),” 1989, Sculpture by Richard Cook
Out of the unhuman past, the creature seems
To have risen through depths of earth, become
By its passage this skeleton in siltstone.
Something in us longs for any sign
Of life before we climbed from the brine: a wish
So strong, we want to wrap bone and flesh
Around what never was. This salamander
Should have swum in vanished waters, breathed air
That held no smoke from oil we burned. Its horns,
Imaginary as dragons we’re forced to learn
Flew only in the skies inside our heads,
Are features we feel nature should have made—
Shouldn’t it? History plays so many tricks
On us, we now decide to play a joke
On the past of scientists: this fossil lies here
Like the remains of what might climb from our fire.
Michael Spence’s poems have appeared recently in Catamaran, The New Criterion, and Tampa Review. New work is forthcoming in The Hopkins Review, The Hudson Review, North American Review, and the anthology, Transformations. His latest book, Umbilical, won the New Criterion Poetry Prize.
Read more poetry by Michael Spence appearing in Terrain.org: two poems and one poem.
Header image of Richard Cook’s “Horned Salamander (Ambystoceratum)” courtesy Washington State Arts Commission.
