Archaeopteryx

Archaeopteryx – The Berlin Specimen
Image from Wikipedia.org

feather-winged dinosaur
or sharp-toothed bird
perhaps something between
neither one nor the other

hard-hearted conservative
or soft-headed liberal
perhaps something between
neither one nor the other

use of matches or lighter
unwelcome in flammable tents
guns and sausages draw down
the scorn of new doyens

we odd creatures of character
true to ourselves left to
locate and dig up the bones
of our ancestors

how else to prove we
once held no less natural
a standing than even the
most effete snobs

seems we no sooner laid down
to rest between layers
of shale when they deemed
our ubiquity henceforth iniquity