revealing the stories

 

Waterfalls

there are stories hidden in the rock

water unlocks and releases for us,

stories of genesis and the earliest of the worlds humans inhabit,

underlying rock is igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic,

and origin tells it how to resist water flowing over it,

and thus reveals an opening to its past,

at waterfalls something holds hard,

and thus the waters’ drop shouts geology’s story,

at one waterfall, Brandywine Falls,

13,000 years ago a volcano erupted here

and left the rock to resist and hold, or slough away,

then the glaciers melted and for 10,000 ;years,

water has revealed what holds and what doesn’t,

the long drop of the falls pulls the trail and the eye to it,

along a creek the town uses for its water,

torrents drop as rapids, and then, interrupted by hard stone,

make an energetic waterfall, Rainbow Falls,

which morphs below into roaring cascades,

miles away, the Green River races down its valley

and then creates Nairn Falls,

as resistant rock forces the water

to use only the convoluted channels it allows,

plate tectonics’s inexorable movement, plus volcanos’ aggressive work,

create the fields upon which water plays and works,

trails and our hearts find the fields where the play is spectacularly good.

by Henry H. Walker

July 21, ‘22