David Eberhardt works at the Baltimore City Jail in the Inmate Programs Dept., ex-con- 21 months in federal prison for pouring blood on draft files, pardoned by Pres. Reagan in '83 (did Reagan ask him for a pardon?); collects books, plays the piano, is on the left (left where?) (where is he going?).
Fall 2009
Table of Contents - Vol. V, No. 3
David Eberhardt
(pronounced Ee-dah) , 47 million year old fossil
Bless all star voyagers from the Messel Pit:
The small Creodont, early Pangolin,
Marsupials, lemur like prosimians,
Elegant early hedgehogs, jewel beetles,
The Messel bird, enigmatic combo of owl and hawk!
The Massillaropter, tiny hoopoes, hopping horses....
Bless these fossils, but bless especially
Ee-dah- Darwinius Masillae, my Ida!
Who stood at a fork in the road pointing HUMAN!
Bless Ee-dah who for 47 million years
Until pulled from the quarry on a shale slab,
Slept dreaming--- bless all travellers! I dream
Of a blue city in the distance- my home---
Purposeful, realized, I can see it
Far way in blue haze, Oz-like from this rest stop
On the thruway in the mountains--- I can't get there!
No access to on ramp--- stuck in the parking lot....
Like Ida on her bier, resin around me like amber.
O strange sad condition--- endless travel, suddenly stopping,
Never getting anywhere! Ee-dah were you heading
Towards the apes---humans or the lemurs?
O Ida, Ee-dah where are we going? in what direction?
The asphalt of parking lots a calm, dark blue,
The blue city on the plains mirage blue.
© David Eberhardt
