In Primordial Days

Grateful Dead: Let it Grow...12/30/77

Imagine, reader,
in primordial days
some vicious dinosaur,
heavy with nightmare jaws,
which chases
a shimmering lizard
up a slope,
and the predator rejoices,
already tasting the kill
in its blood-starved mind,
when, all at once,
its slim prey
spreads its feathered fins
and takes to the air
in a world that had not yet
realized life could fly.

--Ada Palmer
Too Like the Lightning