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Leave behind your suitcase and Venice’s hurried pace
forgoing culture and medieval history for Dolomieu’s Dolomites~
pinnacles of dolomitic limestone chiseled into grotesque shapes
that refuse postcards—carving their own light at dawn and
gently dissolving into peaceful rose at dusk.
Their trails are old conspirators, whispering switchback secrets
to those like me who love geology, nature and
who walk without hurry.
The trails unwind like forgotten stories
each turn a new clause~
a waterfall’s asterisk, a meadow’s ellipsis:
this writer’s inspiration and paradise.
A farmhouse leans into one of the stone slopes,
its shutters laced with blushing pink geraniums.
Inside, my favorite comfort food--speckled cheese
melted over polenta, golden as an Italian afternoon.
Each peak, a vial where daylight lingers,
hoards time in geologic sieves.
These rouge-colored peaks, half-lit, refuse the night~
patient stars and poets don’t mind.
Age
Because I could not accept this Age,
It did kindly accept me.
Does this Age make you shiver?
It does, doesn't it, its true?
The geologic time that's really present,
Above all others is our era.
Now age-old is just a thing,
To get me wondering if and quiver.
I saw the Sad commencement of my generation,
Somehow I mourned the birth of the new.
Are you upset by how tragic it is?
Does it tear you apart too?
I cannot help but stop and look, at the wooly kid.
A kid who is ungrateful. a kid who is muddled, confused
A kid for whom we can have hope, however.
If we can see nurturing him through.
I tried A I generated writing. LOL..I worked on it to make it more my own. LOL..
(Wind River erratic, 2015)
Erratics
I used to think I was erratic,
like it wasn’t a good thing,
probably from what family and teachers said.
Then I moved out West
where the spaces are large, and erratics are common,
not just the human kind,
but geologic ones too.
Big rocks lifted and moved and dumped
by the ice sheet that covered this land
not so long ago.
And I realized, I am an erratic!
Something displaced from my original home,
now part of the landscape, but not quite fitting in.
There’s something soothing about applying
the metaphors of geology to the human condition;
it gives perspective,
easy to see how every change
from bedrock to lonely erratic to infinitesimal beach sand
fits into a natural harmony.
(First published in my 3rd book, Sun Made Flesh and Fiber, 2019)
STONE
I spent my youth presenting as stone,
sure that protection from the violent vicissitudes
of the human condition lay in a geologic journey,
the only real threat the unlikely complications of
continental drift
Hence, I hadn’t allowed for magmatic rifting and
related events that easily turn stone into liquid
and fire, let you harden and rise, gracefully aging
in the capricious company of tectonic gymnastics
the unpredictable processes of water and ice,
of sunshine, warmth, the generation of life
She is seventy-two now with soft tummy fat, and
generous inclinations; I paint her toes when
she asks and offer when she doesn’t
Like the Adirondacks of New York, the circular
appendage to the Canadian Shield, I was a great
granite dome but the gradual journey to a softer,
worn condition, recklessly alive with intelligent life,
has been a beautiful thing – gray hair, great smiles,
sunlight and stone, the gentle topography of the
landscape of “we”!
The Instrumentalists
Percussion: Tectonic plate movement, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions
Strings: Solar wind and flares, meteor hits, and galaxy intrusion
Reeds: Polarity arrangement, methane control under the oceans
Brass: Layered by temperature: air’n water in motion
The Ensemble
Instruments tuned for planet change
Compose symphonies in ethereal range:
Mystic music for geologic meaning -
Melody for cosmic listening.
Ages ordered in time pleasing Trinity -
On earth in the universe out to eternity.
Ice ages in millenniums, cycled through millions:
Our years but moments: compare the planet in billions.
Human lifespan is varied, in century duration,
So we might know our limitations.
Natural science is not political science:
Human hope is in God reliance.
On this earth, the sun rises in the east
And sets in the west
This cosmic phenomenon can’t be missed.
On this earth, the oceans are tinged blue
From where their water came
They have no clue.
On this earth, to the sea the rivers flow
At the edge of growing delta
New land is formed low.
On this earth, the winter time is cold
Northern wind spreads the mist
Dark gloomy sky can’t hold.
On this earth, flowers bloom in spring
Colors splash on green meadows
Butterflies flitter on latticed wings.
On this earth, rain forests are vanishing fast
To control global warming
We need to preserve them, we must.
On this earth, life is a unique entity
Evolution in geologic eons has caused
In the blue planet biodiversity.
On this earth, humans are species of distinction
Ravaging the pristine nature
They will surely face extinction.
April 24, 2021
Contest : Just Stating The Obvious Poetry Contest
Sponsor : Brother Jacob
Haggis hype
Bagpipes bleating like unshorn sheep
Tartan theatrical - military tatoos
Scotland cloning Dolly the Sheep
National pride - Robbie Burns, poet, bard of Auld Lang Syne
Highlands of ancient rocks, rift vallies
natural beauty, layers of worth
Loch Ness, geologic scooped, water serene
Nessie settled in depths, unseen
sonar detection elusive
marine monster of geeky charm
conjured in gift shop puffery
Nessie hat, Dragon like, tucked above protruding ears
In Edinburgh's historic streets
Whiskey fed men, burly, bearded
strut
wrapped in kilts
traditional garb
plaid, pleated, blessed, dressed
in woolen scratchiness (avoid a public itch)
Breezy kilts wrap manly legs menaced by
thigh high thistles
Scottish reach prickly
No matter
Scots men, image strong
(ignore the thistles and street whistles)
brimming swagger like malt liquor
skirting scavengers in exploration peaks
men in kilts (minimalism denied)
protectors of the realm
unafraid
to let it all hang out
Poem composed: March 10, 2021
I open my eyes in this moment
I see electric lights without end
What a blessing taken for granted -
An oversight that I shall now mend
Let us look back in geologic time
Just the blink of an eye if you will
Back to my grandfather's time is all
He had a darkness they had to fill
"Electrify the world" they shouted
Cast the darkness away from our souls
And so clever people who knew how
Began to talk of ditches and poles
They said we will put a bright lightbulb
Each room in each house on the planet
So each room in the world got a wire
And no one took that chore for granted
That wire to that room on the planet
Got buried , put on poles, put in flumes
Crossed mountains, rivers, lakes and deserts
And before long it reached its own room
That chore multiplied by the millions
And in fifty years each room had wire
And each a lightbulb, praise be the Lord,
We didn't need the light from the fire
And so the world was electrified
Right up to this - our moment in time
Say thank you to the men and women
Who lit my way to create this rhyme
7-17-20
Contest: Just A Moment
Sponsor: John Lawless
TRACKS THROUGH TIME
The Sand and pebbles of this stoney
way
Once made a shore on warm Jurassic sea
High dunes in desert, by great ocean bay
Now heathland slopes and barrows that we see
These tracks between the heather fronds
touch light
Cross pine tree hurst with gorse in blossom gold
Once paced by tiger, brazen eyes burned bright
And swarthy hunters skilled in ways of old
O’er neat home gardens - flowers bloom in line
Where thrush and warbler each a sweet air sings
Within a span of geologic time
Great pterodactyls soared on scaly wings
Our world, perceived by some: in dire decline
Goes on with little care for our brief lives
Yet we may play a part in its design
At least as wardens - lest it be our shrine
Fossil, lithified archive of archaic organic entities
the engraved vestiges of geologic deluge obscure
the petrified signature of fragile existence lost
the lineage weaved by the strands of evolution.
The broken life buried in sediments of strife
covered by the debris of crumbled time past.
Even before the grave is dug skeletal life’s relic
turns into forgotten fossil in the living world.
November 15, 2018
Let our feverish mountain be free,
so she can sooth her burned skin,
and resume her role
as supreme guardian of this land,
that we know as well as our hands,
each crevice telling a geologic story,
of splendor and might,
nature's wrathful spirit
forever leaving deep scars
that ponders even the bravest men of science.
Let our burned mountain wait,
patient as the sun,
for the rain
that will someday return
and restore our sacred mountain
back to the castle
that protects our native land.
Galactic and fleeting
Galvanic completing
Gone, never repeating
Geologic receding
Glowing and preceding
Glyphs that they were reading
Gnosis they were leading
Freedom without responsibility
Freedom without accountability
Are the causes for evil
And there lurks the devil
Freedom is a privilege
Free only with knowledge
Not a right and must be earned
It is to be learned
King shouted ‘free at last’
A whisper from the past
What prevails is abusive power and oppression
Only to have mass suppression
A tiny quark in the universe
Why with each other are we adverse?
Organic existence one nanosecond in geologic time
A concept so sublime
AND
The heart aches
With all the fakes
SPEECH IMPEDIMENT JOB-SEEKER
An aged respondent called Smith
Answered the newspaper job-list herewith
“Man wanted as geologist
Great skill at digging out schist
And now and again a large batholith.”
But this geologic skill was a myth.
Because like rock-hound kin and kith
They just wanted a man,
Not the lisping old gran
That they thaw when she gave them a kith.
GEOLOGICAL HUMOUR
A geologist respondent called Smith
Answered the newspaper job-list herewith
“Man wanted as a field geologist” with
Great skill at at finding a batholith
Or sometimes an occasional laccolith.
But his geologic skill was only a myth.
Unlike my geologic kin and kith,
Instead of being a man, she wath a mith -
Ath I dithcovered when she gave me a kith.
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