To Drift in Sandstone Folds
Alys Jackson
Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse 2009 (view all the winners)
Most Highly Commended
Soft-footed shadows creep in fossil shades.
Beneath the cliffs of Gariwerd the evening
Chill exhales in fractured, weathered glades.
Folded, tilted memories. Exposed and turning.
Our history shelved in countless volumes, etched
On rock-bound in earth. Sandstone pages
Cradling species crouched below cracked skin—
Chronicles of a planet's fading ages.
Our past—where rock-kissed bones dance deep within.
Primordial oceans swell beneath our feet,
Burst in wind-split waves, and I am cast
In valleys where the past and present speak.
Of all the species will ours be the last?
Within still depths still jawless creatures leap—
Mineral shoals whose broken bodies turn,
And twist within their geologic tombs.
Deeper, earth's indifferent furnace burns,
And mountains writhe and rise in molten wombs.
Perhaps someday in death we too may rise,
Borne upon the backs of mountains. Raised,
To drift in sandstone folds: immortalized.
