Trilobite

An old-fashioned poem to my daughter Rosie on her wedding day, to accompany the gift of a exquisitely prepared trilobite fossil 450m years old, from the Atlas Mountains in Morocco.

Long ago, in ages grand

I fell through midnight seas so cold

Sank beneath the crushing sand

And turned into this stone you hold.

Buried deep, through countless time

I, creeping, rose to mountains high

Until the day of the hunter's climb

Which laid me bare to human eye.

If you should make each other weep

With broken words, and miscontend,

Think of the time I lay asleep

Remember your own brief time, and mend.

And through all the days when love will flow

With blessed joy and caring kiss

Keep me near, our love to know -

Your friend Eliza and your father,

Chris