My first published writing was “Invasion of the Dinosaurs” an article that appeared in Connecticut Parent thirty years ago. It was inspired by my son’s love of dinosaurs and my own lifelong fascination with these prehistoric creatures. Although Michael’s interest waned as he grew older, mine never has.
So it was that I spent a hot August afternoon roaming the halls of the American Museum of Natural History. Most of these exhibits are familiar to me, but I still love visiting them. Since my last visit, the museum has added a new resident: the titanosaur!
You can learn more about this truly massive specimen here.
Contemplating all these fossils reminded me of this poem, by Myra Cohn Livingston:
“Dinosaurs”
Their feet, planted into tar,
drew them down,
back to the core of birth,
and all they are
is found in earth,
recovered, bone by bone,
rising again, like stone
skeletons, naked, white,
to live again, staring,
head holes glaring,
towering, proud, tall,
in some museum hall.
Congratulations to Rebecca Herzog, Kimberly Hutmacher, and Amy Warntz! You are the winners of last week’s giveaway of Great Morning! Poems for School Leaders to Read Aloud! Thank you again to Sylvia and Janet for making this giveaway possible!
Please be sure to visit Mary Lee Hahn at A Year of Reading for the Poetry Friday Roundup!
Reading to the Core 
We go back to the Field Museum again and again for just the same reasons — to visit old friends (Hello, Sue!) and see what’s new. Thanks for the Myra Cohn Livingston poem. I’m not sure I’ve ever read that one!
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“Towering, proud, tall” – such descriptive words for the dinosaur who doesn’t fit into the hall and extends toward the elevator banks. Thanks for the link with additional information. I love that while your son’s interest waned, yours grew into a lifelong fascination.
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suggestions! A.great poem. I can just see this dinosaur.
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I don’t know how that started with suggestions! Weird internet antics!
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Wonderful poem. I love ‘head holes glaring’. Thanks for sharing. (oops, I just made a poem!)
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I was just at our science & nature museum yesterday with the girls where we always spend time admiring these ancient creatures “towering, proud, tall,/in some museum hall.” Thanks for the poem, fun to hear of your continuing love of dinosaurs.
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Museums are always enticing but especially so on hot August days! We spent yesterday at Bowdoin College exploring the Arctic Museum and at a Winslow Homer exhibit at their Art Museum. I hope you enjoyed your museum trip as much as we enjoyed ours! Thanks for sharing the poem “Dinosaurs.” I especially like the line “and all they are/is found in earth.”
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Thanks for this wonderfully rich post Catherine, I’ve always been a fan of dinosaurs! Loved visiting the America Museum of Natural History’s site and viewing the new Titanosaur. I’m going to return and read up on Climate change their too. BTW we have some pretty cool dinosaur bones here at the Field Museum, in Chicago, and there’s a wonderful wordless picture book where you travel through the skeleton of a dinosaur called “Time Flies” by Eric Rohmann. Thanks for Myra Cohn Livingston’s poem too! https://www.amazon.com/Time-Flies-Eric-Rohmann/dp/0517885557/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1533492394&sr=1-1&keywords=time+flies
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Hooray for dinosaurs and for museums that lead us to all kinds of unsuspecting adventures.
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