Layer Cake Of Time

Derek Riemer — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 03:43:53 GMT

This poem is a deep reflection of my thoughts as I wander the many canyons, deserts, mountains and other landscapes on this plannet we call home. The layers of rock are windows into the past, that put the human experience into perspective. Once, while eating a cake rich with layers of different composition, it dawned on me that the rock layers of many places where I recreate are like this cake. Each layer represents a period in time. Some layers tilted, some eroded away, some simply lay flat. Many times, streams and rivers cut into this cake like a knife, allowing us to see into the layer cake, and appreciate it. Climbing the layers of this cake, it’s possible to touch the story, to read it. In one location, the cake told of an ancient dune field. Massive pillars of sand stood above the desert frozen in time. Iron nodules laid embedded in the frozen dunes, telling a story about iron rich water coursing through the sand over many millennia , allowing the iron to collect in voids left behind by various forces. In another location, I felt rounded pebbles embedded in a matrix of sand, cemented together and slightly metamorphosed. The story the rounded fragments told was of an ancient river, losing its energy as it dropped fragments it took from the nearby mountains into a tidal estuary. Those ancient rivers , teaming with Pennsylvanian life, shredded an ancient mountain range down to the ocean before being buried, hushed forever. After lying buried for over 200 million years, thousands of times longer than humans have existed, a mountain building event tilted it 40 degrees so that a creek could cut into it, expposing it as towers with eastward dipping slabs. As modern rivers enter the canyons they have carved into the ancient layered cake of time, they surge with energy as the landscape around them narrows. It’s as if the river says to us, come with me, to explore the story I uncovered!

Touching time, towering, vast
Time stands high in grand relief.
Layered stories  trace the past,
Etched in stone, stark and brief
As I wander through a layered cake of time.
Guarding the desert, towers of stone,
Stand watch from a tilted throne;
Cracks run deep, through petroglyph grand,
Relics left by human hand.
sentinels of the desert
Watch me wander this layered cake of time.
Waves once crashed,
Rivers laid silty beds;
After slumber beneath ocean’s sweep,
The desert claimed this fractured keep.
Long ago,
Reptiles, rulers of this land,
Wandered a layered cake of time.
Roaring creek, through flat and canyon,
Sings a chant of antiquity;
Carving deep through time’s dominion,
Crushing mountains relentlessly.
Through stone and sand, my eternal companion,
Etches a scroll through this layered cake of time.
As I wander, hushed by thunder,
Through this layered cake of time;
My thoughts float through the folded strata,
Past cliffs rich of layered verse.
Each step unveils a buried story,
As the land slopes down and wide;
The layers—once rivers in glory—
Lie rust-red, a frozen tide,
Broken, tilted, worn, and wandered,
Yet strong enough to birth the waves
brought by the Relentless beating of time.
These rocks; made of sand and gravel,
Relics of mountains long gone by—
Cemented fragments shaped by time and tumble,
Cradle roots where lizards thrive;
Their fears and  struggles speak  of life so momentary,
in this layered cake of time.
From this fan of fractured ages,
Roots descend, and grasses climb.
Life reclaims what once lay buried—
Brief green embers bloom and die,
Held forever, alive so momentarily,
In this layered cake of time.

Songs of Serenity

Derek Riemer — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 20:19:31 GMT

Melodies, drift like snow in the wind,
sooth the mind; bring joy to thee.
In song, we rest, peacefully listening;
Drifting like wind across the landscapes of life.
Rest, weary soul, let music relax your troubles,
Listen; Feel; be the music!

Song poem

Derek Riemer — Thu, 30 Dec 2021 06:27:10 GMT

A sea so vast, untamed, wild and free,
Songs like waves pick me up and throw me down;
The mighty ocean of music gives me hope, shows me the way,
to emotions unseen, dreams and empathy.

night

Derek Riemer — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 03:56:04 GMT

No teaser for this article.

poem001

Derek Riemer — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 03:02:44 GMT

One day came a breeze in a meadow at night,
That brought on a deep cold full of fright,
So dark and So damp,
It lurked and it ran,
Over the grass covered nulls and tree laden  hills.

The Accessible Engineer: Derek Riemer (Posts about poetry)

Layer Cake Of Time

Songs of Serenity

Song poem

night

poem001