All Quotes By Tag: Canyon

“Sunrise, Grand Canyon We stand on the edge, the fallInto depth, the ascentOf light revelatory, the canyon walls movingUp out ofShadow, litColors of the layers cuttingDown through darkness, sunrise as itPasses aPrecipitate of the river, its burnt tangerineFlare brief, jaggedBleeding above the far rim for a splitSecond I have imaginedYou here with me, watching day’s onslaught Standing in your bones-they seemImplied in the record almostBy chance- fossil remains heldIn abundance in the walls, exposedBy freeze and thaw, beautiful like a theory statingWho we are isCarried forward by the xChromosome down the matrilineal lineRecessive and riverine, you likeMe aberrant and bittersweet…Riding the highColorado Plateau as the opposingContinental plates force it overA mile upward without buckling, smoothTensed, muscular fundament, your bonesYet to be wrapped around mine-This will come later, when I returnTo your place and time…The geologic cross section Of the canyonDroppingFrom where I stand, hundreds millions of shades of terra cotta, of copperManganese and rust, the many varieties of stone-Silt, sand, and slate, even “greenRiver rock…”my body voicing its immenseGenetic imperatives, human geology falling awayInto aDepth i am still unprepared forThe canyon cutting down to The great unconformity, a layer So named by the lack Of any fossil evidence to hypothesizeAbout and date suchA remote time by, at last no possibleRetrospective certainties…John Barton”

“It’s all about perspective… From the top of the canyon, the river looks like a snake and from the bottom of the canyon, it looks like a cascading body of jewel-blue water.”