“
Sunrise, Grand Canyon
We stand on the edge, the fall
Into depth, the ascent
Of light revelatory, the canyon walls moving
Up out of
Shadow, lit
Colors of the layers cutting
Down through darkness, sunrise as it
Passes a
Precipitate of the river, its burnt tangerine
Flare brief, jagged
Bleeding above the far rim for a split
Second I have imagined
You here with me, watching day’s onslaught
Standing in your bones-they seem
Implied in the record almost
By chance- fossil remains held
In abundance in the walls, exposed
By freeze and thaw, beautiful like a theory stating
Who we are is
Carried forward by the x
Chromosome down the matrilineal line
Recessive and riverine, you like
Me aberrant and bittersweet...
Riding the high
Colorado Plateau as the opposing
Continental plates force it over
A mile upward without buckling, smooth
Tensed, muscular fundament, your bones
Yet to be wrapped around mine-
This will come later, when I return
To your place and time...
The geologic cross section
Of the canyon
Dropping
From where I stand, hundreds
millions of shades of terra cotta, of copper
Manganese and rust, the many varieties of stone-
Silt, sand, and slate, even “green
River rock...”my body voicing its immense
Genetic imperatives, human
geology falling away
Into a
Depth i am still unprepared for
The canyon cutting down to
The great unconformity, a layer
So named by the lack
Of any fossil evidence to hypothesize
About and date such
A remote time by, at last no possible
Retrospective certainties...
John Barton
”
”