Walking With Dinosaurs

We walked through the Crystal Palace Park
Sunday with ice and snow on the ground
The chipping and scraping of shovels and spades
Rang out as the only sound

While politicians in Copenhagen
Sealed our predestined fate
The winter sun of the shortest day
Agreed that the hour was late

And asylum seekers passed headless statues
As the Community Service youths worked on
I began to doubt the truth of your claim
I believed that the lizards had gone…

But slipping and sliding on sheets of black ice
We pushed through the foliage thick
And there they towered on the frozen pond
And both of our hearts beat quick

Cloaked in a layer of frozen snow
Out of date and inaccurate by degrees
These ghostly, wonderful, Victorian spectres
Stood true against the blasting breeze

For somehow history because not exact
Has stumbled on something more precious though
Instead of a remnant of some other age
These artefacts seem to breathe and glow

And Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ hand
Still shadows The Dinosaur Court
And holding your hand as you focused your Mobile
We stood together in thought

“I knew you would like it here,” you say
And I smile and I know that you knew I would
And we turn and together walk under the trees
The ice cracking underfoot