I drove past a construction site yesterday that was active with heavy equipment,  and the first line of a poem flashed into my mind. “The dinosaurs are not all dead.” I remembered that this poem had personified a steam shovel, but I couldn’t remember the rest of the poem or the author.

Have to love Google. A couple of clicks later, and I was able to recapture the delight that I remember feeling when I first read this poem, and I can share it.

Steam Shovel

The dinosaurs are not all dead.

I saw one raise its iron head

To watch me walking down the road

Beyond our house today.

Its jaws were dripping with a load

Of earth and grass that it had cropped.

It must have heard me when I stopped,

Snorted white steam my way,

And stretched its long neck out to see,

And chewed and grinned quite amiably!

                                           Charles Malam