dragon histories
An X-ray beam inside the ancient stone
spreads out, reflects a fan of angled peeks
inside the fossil Archaeopteryx,
at feathers anchored to its hollow bones.
A flock of robots wavers in the sky.
Their plastic exoskeletons owe much
to this clawed beast no human hand may touch.
Far from the first of vertebrates to fly,
it seized a happy accident's design,
leapt from a limb and, reaching, did not fall -
spread wings which are but ghostly shadows now.
Will our experiments leave such a sign,
set down in text or chipped from limestone wall,
when dragons turn to ask their histories - how?
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