The Meaninglessness of Rock Time

[mnaz]

Rock time.
Billions of years.
Meaningless, inhuman.
It destroys entire mountains.
No sir! Terrain must be ageless!
Terrain is mountain rhythms in space.
Rock time is mountain rhythms in time,
about halfway across a universe.

Imagine.
Earth toys with Mountain.
Plays cards with him for eons, until
Mountain is not long for the horizon,
too old and worn to wear snow, yet
Mountain naps through all of history,
except for a loud belch at times
to raise a little hell.

[winddance]

hold a sun warm rock
you can feel its age
and the energy of its youth
eons ago
throw it
and change the course
of history

[mnaz]

Yes ... I found geology a bit dull. They told me I should study and classify rock before I tried to write silly "poems" about it. But (in the desert in particular) I usually just marvel at its various shapes and colors, from black rock to red rock, explosion to erosion. It rarely moves for us in real time (whatever "real time" is), at least perceptibly, but in rock time it is continually flowing, fracturing, slipping, colliding, heaving and wearing down; an eternal grind driven by internal fire.

[sasha]

Around here we've got what are called glacial erratics - automobile-sized pebbles dragged along by the glaciers flowing over the landscape 15,000 yrs ago. Great, mute, free-standing granite boulders out in the middle of nowhere - the woods around me are full of them - two just across the road from me, each the size of a small house trailer standing on end. One right at the edge of the road that my daughter & I liked to climb atop when she was little. It didn't seem to mind. And we liked its company.

[mnaz]

That's the first time I've ever heard "automobile-sized pebbles." Cool. I'm surprised I haven't seen more of them around here (in the Pac-NW) among the glacial "drumlin" hills. I read John McPhee's "Basin and Range" when I wandered thru the desert years ago, and that book, despite its dry scientific mega-numbers, ignited a "rock awareness" in me. Well, that book, plus being out in the open, surrounded by bare rock.

[sasha]

That's the first time I've ever heard "automobile-sized pebbles."...

- guess I was trying to emphasize the size of the glaciers, a mile thick in places. from their perspective. These massive chunks of rock were just pebbles.

... here (in the Pac-NW) among the glacial "drumlin" hills. I read John McPhee's "Basin and Range" when I wandered thru the desert years ago...

Neil Jorgensen's "Guide to the New England Landscape" did it for me - suddenly I began to see all the disparate features around me as part of a coherent whole. Drumlins are fairly common around here, too. Even a couple of eskers, but they're less common.

[winddance]

pacific rockfish

[mnaz]

Yes! I see the eye.
As an aside, I try to imagine rock time, deep time (or deep space) when I get too full of myself. It's humbling.