Throwback Thursday: ‘Devonian’ by Emily Osborne

Rocks older by zoic-eras, sophomoric and slick
with mosses and molluscs.  A climate viscid
with early tetrapods, colossal flora.

Strata tempera, when insects innovated slowly
in Gondwana, when amphibian yolks
in Euramerica puddled in backwaters;
little gold auras becoming tadpoles
with a stroke, chromatic flecks
in the billions-big biota.

Small fauna, relics glassed in exhibits.
Crushed by calcite or resin-gummed,
skeletons which experts gesso
with muscle.  Scales and tones guessed
by palaeontologists, chiming with dyes
in art rooms nearby.
Pedantic plaques suggest Devonian
palettes were narrow, when oceans
lassoed land, impassable,
and flashiness was risky in the greater hunger.

Perhaps.  Shrouded by fronds,
proto-chameleons mingled in malachite mattes,
or varnished their backs to fascinate mates,
cloning an indigo spectrum, spawning
thousandfold replicas.

Museum-goers are titillated by halos of rust
and rarity, the crumble of a mother-and-child.
Brushes that recovered ancient bodies, icons
once so common one might string
their slight bones on a rosary.