Mary Anning Roars to the Sea

by Sophie Kirtley

In 1811, twelve year old Mary Anning found the first complete Ichthyosaur skeleton on the beach near her home in Lyme Regis.

Wild waves crash, raw winds roar:

I hear the voice of the lost dinosaur.

I roar back. I am bold.

I roar because in my hand I hold

my hammer

to break

these rocks

apart

and unlock the secrets

at their old, cold heart.

‘I found your bones!’

I shout, all alone,

to the plesiosaur

who paddled and dived

who lived, then died,

right here, before,

so long before

me,

in my wind-flapped gown

with my salt-wet hair

staring down at the ground,

then up

up at the fast grey sky,

where seven white gulls

circle and cry, and circle, and I

squeeze my eyes half shut

and I half-spy

a pterosaur

on the wing.

‘I found your bones!’

I roar to the thing

who isn’t really there

anymore, then I roar

as I sing a half-made song,

with words half-right

and words half-wrong

with wild words lost

in the wind-spun air

and why do I sing?

Because I dare.

I dare to dig,

and I dare

to find

the bones and the shadows

left behind.

I dare to turn stone after stone

after stone,

I wear hard boots

and, I walk all alone,

here, right here,

with my hammer in my hand,

I dare to walk the land-slipped

shifty sand,

and I dare to learn

and to understand.

I dare to sing and I dare to roar

like the dinosaurs

who dared here

long long

before.

With kind permission of the poet