All Quotes By Tag: Grand-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”

“Publishing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.”

“He meant the Grand Canyon was only a mood of nature, a bold promise, a beautiful record. He meant that mountains had sifted away in its dust, yet the canyon was young. Man was nothing, so let him be humble. This cataclysm of the earth, this playground of a river was not inscrutable; it was only inevitable—as inevitable as nature herself. Millions of years in the bygone ages it had lain serene under a half moon; it would bask silent under a rayless sun, in the onward edge of time.It taught simplicity, serenity, peace. The eye that saw only the strife, the war, the decay, the ruin, or only the glory and the tragedy, saw not all the truth. It spoke simply, though its words were grand: “My spirit is the Spirit of Time, of Eternity, of God. Man is little, vain, vaunting. Listen. To-morrow he shall be gone. Peace! Peace!”

“I believe in a benevolent God not because He created the Grand Canyon or Michelangelo, but because He gave us snacks.”