deep time*

the repository of things
ancient and new
bones to nuclear waste
our underland hidden
in deep hollows
dark

we know so little of this land
of sisterhood among plants
trees sharing nutrients, glucose, minerals
through fungal lace
hundreds of millions of years old

our languge shows version
depression, down turn, cataclysm
depth is despised

our overland perspective
cut off by a horizontal view
denies the buried past
the deeper legacy we leave

when graves break through
when reindeer corpses appear
in the defrosting Arctic
when retreating Himalayan glaciers
reveal long dead remains
we feel intruded upon
our shadow selves exposed

a chronology kept
in ice, stone, sea beds
showing us as an instant
in geologic time

here we are
on this restless earth
deep time opens up
to widen our view and
reveal our limits

*in tribute to Robert MacFarlane
author of Underland, a Deep Time Journey