Ode to DC (Revised)

My mind now wafts and strays from task in hand, The letters I type now make no sense; I tap no more and up I stretch and stand, Then back I sit, no longer tense. I glance towards the pile of waiting files - On top, a paperweight so dense - A shapeless chunk of rock upon the piles; A pattern embossed that makes no sense? What now? My eyes now glaze; my mind so blurred; I feel a breeze, my mind recast, As down I look, so cool, from wind-swept cliffs, And see a scene that’s long-since past. A group of students, so keen, in weather so wet, A wide expanse of shales uncovered On tide-swept rocks we slip and slide - and yet - We look for treasures undiscovered. “A nodule! A nodule!” he yells with untold bliss, ‘Tis split with chisel; now revealed - So perfect a coil – a spira mirabilis - So flawless - for eons the rock concealed. Now that years have passed, I ponder anew, A logarithmic spiral I see? A spira mirabilis it was - I know - ’tis true! Preserved as fossil, now prised free! Around the surface I carefully trace my finger; A perfect spiral so revealed; And now upon the shell I let it linger - Such beauty’s been so long concealed! Was it Abbess Hilda, Saint of Whitby, Who banished the snakes from her domain? Now coiled and frozen in death and hidden so deeply, Beneath her abbey, revealed again? Or were you once a harmless living creature, In a warm primeval sea? Nothing then you knew of such a future, In my study, so safe, with me. Dactylioceras commune, ‘DC’ for short, For that’s your name my ammonite - I place you back on top of papers dull, ….. I sigh; my letters now to write. 29 April 2013 28 April 2022 The fossil, Dactylioceras commune (or DC), was chiselled from the Upper Lias Shales at Whitby some time in 1963 on a fieldtrip with students form Haberdashers’ School, Elstree. This is a revised version of the original from 2013