preanthropocene – sunrise in a small city

grenville and herring

top of world
is briefly so
sands squeezing into rock
rise up a warrior
towering reflecting every second of suns arc
breathing swift air steering clouds
kneeling down stretched arms bare
collapsing embrace warmth underneath
upturn and plough
bearing the next
warrior bloodbreath swims with us

run at sunrise — (baltimore gneiss formed over 1 billion years ago when the grenville mountains were forming is exposed in herring run park)

cylburn

magma intrudes
even as a cathedral canopy of brown limbs

woods at sunrise — (magma was forced into the rock under cylburn arboretum over 490 million years ago as the grenville mountains were eroding)

james run jones falls

volcanos in the ocean
build paradises
that fall to pieces
and re-emerge
to be washed away
and re-emerge

jones falls at sunrise — (the lower falls of jones falls carve through rock formed over 490 million years ago, during one of several mountain building events from colliding plates–volcanic island arcs were also formed)

hampstead hill

sands flooded and heaped
when the water recedes
green and mottle
in light sky
before it returns

patterson park at sunrise — (the western side of patterson park is a hill of sand deposited by a flood more than 65 million years ago)

for now

grenville
taconic and acadian
allegheny
hills rise in waves from mirovia
tethys
rheic and iapetus and atlantic.
alluvium settles.
every waters edge shimmers for now
from always

inner harbor at sunrise — (the inner harbor is at the western edge of a coastal plain of sediments that began accumulating 145 million years ago, in a river valley back-flooded by the atlantic ocean)