Tectonics

Icebergs of granite float on an ocean
of fire, a luminescing sea of
liquid rock. We know this.
We know
this, though we talk about it
little, agree for the purposes
of discussion to heed
the pock marks of lava only
intermittently, when active
or threatened.
'Like a rock
I was wet as I could be
Like a rock
I lit up reality.
Oo-hoo, like a rock.'
As if solid ground meant more
than an eggshell on molten
albumin, shaved ice
in a boiling martini, as if
the bubbles did not
wash up the erections
we call the Himalaya, as if
the collide-ascope of continents did
not shift with the churning
currents below. The certainties
we call foundations, the bedrocks
of knowledge vanish
with a swirling dream we are merely
too quick to see.
Just so, just so.
The hard becomes
soft, the permanent
fleeting the dead
alive with candent


heat. Our metaphors
fail
us. Erroneous as sight,
shaky as a cliff,
solid as the wind,
superficial as the sea,
our metaphors fail
us, and we
them. We rehearse
the chains
of thought, the script of progress pre-
ordained. Know that
we ignore and in ignoring
know,
beneath the script of marble
tongues the very planet
lives aglow.