Chicxulub

I may never get to the Yucatan
to touch the KT boundary at its thickest

that iridium layer exposed
like a line of fat in the tastiest bacon

yet this was where the asteroid slammed,
when the dinosaurs were fried

atomised or blasted by the wind;
when Cretaceous gave way to Tertiary

and little shrews crawled out
into a scene like a nuclear winter.

Chicxulub— how the strange name grates
like the sound of the still ringing earth.

Merely saying it, I get a sense of deja vu,
like a sudden blinding flash

where I glimpse the endless burials
high on the mountain of Kailash

screened on some future sky

image and poem © copyright dfbarker 2012
painting clearly not of Chicxulub but of a scene much nearer to home, namely Hunstanton, where there is at least visible strata in the cliffs.