My life in this museum may
\nSeem rather dull to you,
\n100 years stuck on a wall
\nSounds tiring, it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n
But if you knew my story, you
\nWould soon begin to see
\nThat epochs pass like seconds
\nWhen you\u2019re as old as me.<\/p>\n
I watch you humans flit about
\nLike ants, from my display,
\nAnd I confess, I do enjoy
\nTo people-watch all day.<\/p>\n
And so I\u2019m quite content here, in
\nThe Fossil Gallery – yet
\nI often reminisce about
\nMy old life in the sea.<\/p>\n
My ancestors were lizards
\nSlinking through the sun-kissed sand,
\n\u2018Till one day they decided
\nThey were not content on land.<\/p>\n
A major mass extinction meant
\nAll sea creatures were killed;
\nThe ocean was an empty niche
\nWaiting to be filled.<\/p>\n
This drove their evolution,
\nAnd scales turned into skin,
\nTheir fingers became flippers
\nAnd tail turned into fin.<\/p>\n
And so my kind invaded
\nAny ocean that they pleased.
\nThe ichthyosaurs were reigning
\nEvery corner of the seas.<\/p>\n
The Mesozoic Era
\nWas when I lived and died.
\nWhen reptiles ruled the oceans,
\nLand, rivers, seas and skies.<\/p>\n
As powerful as any tide,
\nMy tail swept to and fro,
\nWide eyes made for the darkness, so
\nInto the deep, I\u2019d go.<\/p>\n
But I was made for swimming –
\nChasing prey in open sea.
\nYou wouldn\u2019t find another who could
\nSwim as fast as me.<\/p>\n
But then there came a time when I
\nCould chase my prey no more,
\nI knew my time was over
\nAnd sank gently to the floor.<\/p>\n
I lay there for millennia,
\nUpon the ocean bed,
\nAs sediment, like sands of time
\nBuilt up upon my head.<\/p>\n
And as the heaviness above
\nPressed down upon my bone,
\nRock soon replaced my body,
\nAnd turned me into stone.<\/p>\n
The continents all shifted –
\nEither merged or broke apart.
\nNew species rose and fell, just like
\nThe beating of a heart.<\/p>\n
And all the while I stayed there
\n\u2018Till my rocky tomb unfurled –
\nAnd I gazed upon the landscape of
\nAn unfamiliar world.<\/p>\n
You dug me up and hung me on
\nThe wall for all to see.
\nNo living soul had seen a stranger
\nAnimal than me.<\/p>\n
A funny fish, or crocodile,
\nWere both bandied about.
\nSea-dragon, dolphin, dinosaur,
\nYou couldn\u2019t work me out.<\/p>\n
But science has progressed, and so
\nYou know me now, it\u2019s true.
\nBut just think, I\u2019ve had lots of time
\nTo get to know you, too.<\/p>\n
Your climate\u2019s getting warmer, you\u2019re
\nHeld captive by your phones,
\nWill you only stop to see it
\nWhen all that\u2019s left of you is bones?<\/p>\n
So as the day comes to a close here
\nIn the Fossil Gallery,
\nI watch you down below me, and
\nYou look, but do not see.<\/p>\n
So I look on with interest
\nBecause stay on this wall I must –
\nUntil you come to join me
\nOr I crumble into dust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Nicola Robson, MSc student, Department of Life Sciences The Fossil Gallery My life in this museum may Seem rather dull to you, 100 years stuck on a wall Sounds tiring, it\u2019s true. But if you knew my story, you Would soon begin to see That epochs pass like seconds When you\u2019re as old as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/icpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/icpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/icpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/icpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/icpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1202"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/icpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1224,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/icpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1202\/revisions\/1224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/icpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/icpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-staging.imperial.ac.uk\/icpostgrad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}