FOSSICKING
calcite rose
This
poem is a small celebration of the wonders of stones and minerals. It
refers to some pottering around in a basalt quarry- rocks that are
remains of the erosion of a large volcanic area or caldera in the
Northern Rivers region of NSW. When the volcano finished it's
eruptions about 20 million years ago, it had risen to a height of
over 2 kilometres, and layers of lava and ash had been deposited over
its outward slopes, to a diameter of about 100 kilometres.
http://www.bigvolcano.com.au/natural/wollum.htm
chalcedony
A
couple of terms that may be unfamiliar to some-
FOSSICKING-
Australia and NZ - searching for gold
or
precious stones in abandoned workings, rivers, etc.
To
rummage or search for (something)
POTHOLE
A hole or pit, especially one in a
road surface.
red jasper
volcanic glass (obsidian)
FOSSICKING
Here's
a hole in green hill's flow:
Bare,
official gulf in grass,
Where
they've blown
up earth and dug;
Crushing
rocks to heaps of rubble,
Dusty
piles of small, grey stones-
Spread
as gravel to resurface
Long
and pot-holed, country roads.
Here's
a patch for plundering,
Searching
Vulcan's ancient store,
Fossicking
for fragments forged
In the
far past fires of the earth,
In his
long-since vanished furnace.
Just
for pleasure in the seeking,
Peering
all around the place,
We go
searching for earth beauty,
Buried
far from sight and light.
Just
for seeking as a pleasure,
We go
smashing bits from boulders
In the
massive mounds of tumbled rocks,
Finding
what deposited and formed
In the
fissures of the basalt.
And
hidden, they are here:
Bright
tiny treasurings-
A
calcite rose: a fadeless flower
With
centuries in petals; a great
Smooth
egg of dark volcanic glass,
So hard
and sheer, so sharp if shattered.
And
scattered here and there, there lie
Red
shards of tough, sleek jasper;
Or
shimmering, light fragments
Of
bubbled, waxy-white chalcedony;
Or
best, a hollow of clear calcite crystal,
Once
buried far from light, in stony starkness,
Now
finding day to glitter with its shining peaks-
As if
some distant star-gleam leaked
The
forms of pure light into the solid darkness.
calcite crystals
