Layer Cake Of Time
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.