Paleontology

They’re dinosaurs.
In my middle age,
I call them dinosaurs.
Nothing like the gentle/savage
mysteries found in the museums
and books of my children’s youth.
No, but still,
they are my dinosaurs.
One by one,
disappearing from
the landscape of my family,
their leaving as much a mystery to me
as the disappearance of the
triceratops,
or the brontosaurus
and yet inevitable,
taking with them a way of living,
of loving.
When they are extinct,
will they be, like the secrets
held in stratified earth,
discovered anew, studied, appreciated,
by those who never knew them?

My dinosaurs.
I will miss them.
There are so few left.
Leaving me to become
one of them,
dinosaur to those who next
inherit
this layer of creation
Will I be measured the same,
found a fitting evolution of love
or the beginning of the fall?
Will I stand up to exhumation
worthy of display, of study,
protected artifact
or common stone, briefly sifted,
unremarkable, and tossed aside?