Geologist in Love: 15 Nature and Geology Themed Poems

by Cortney Cameron

This 30-page full-color, full-spread chapbook features 15 celebratory and pensive nature and geology themed poems set to nature photography hand-selected to accompany each poem. Ordered by tone, several of the poems are geology "puns" that symbolically link geologic timescales and processes to human ones, while others simply revel in nature's beauty as seen through the eye of a geoscientist and spiritual naturalist. The collection makes an excellent conversation or coffee table piece for science lovers, nature enthusiasts, and spiritual naturalists. Poems included: Appalachians Pahoehoe Primordial Free-floating Mind Immigrant (Evolution) Filicide (Extinction Event) Hurricane The Robin's Song Tree Wetland Fall Succession Gaia A View of the River On the Shoulders (Orogeny)On the Shoulders (Orogeny)On the mountain,I am a grain:Lain atop,Another grain.And so too I shall be the hand,On which a newborn grain shall stand,Upward building, one by one--And though I shalln't behold the sum--It is enough, for me, just knowing:I am a grain,On a mountainGrowing.Immigrant (Evolution)Seeking a better life for their children,My family moved out of the oceanThree million centuries ago.It isn't written in the family bible--After so much time, the family denies any relation--But I recognize my cousins:I have their bones.Gazing at the ocean, the waves beckon meTo return to my long-ago home--and yet--A person starts life seventy-five percent water,Built of cells and teardrops,Point-nine percent saline:--We carry it with us.Filicide (Extinction Event)In the beginning, there was magma.A red planet, barren save rock,Ruled by volcanoes, inhospitable--butThe most common volcanic vapor is water, andThey filled the skies and basins by drops,What patience! Then"I put you onto this earth," they spewedA choking cloud of dust in the atmosphereAnd half of life disappearedSuccessionI am monument.Carrying your ripples, IClaw and crawl; I stand, anew.Mountains I mold, rivers uncurl;Warden of your legacy, I strive;I uphold your singsong colors in my blood.By my witness all shall know,Ere life was, andHere it yet remains.WetlandSilent land of waterLong reflections of treesForest above and belowTreeThough from this place, I cannot move,With naught--but dirt--and sun--and rain--for food:From just three things, I have grownA hundred feet, a leafy crown--An atmosphere, a barken gown.Young one, rest beneath my shadeAnd share in all these things we've made.AppalachiansWhen o'er the earth I see them rise,By meters, bluegreen, through the skies,With their flanks, my spirits climbBy ten million years at a time--Back to the churning of great continents,Which joining, birthed--the earth was bent--These gentle gods, which wrinkled, stand,As watchful guardians of this land,Who from their bodies, bleeding, built,The East Coast, from the sea, by silt,Across three thousand thousand centuriesWhich link a trilobite and me--My chest grows tight, my vision blurs,And in my soul, an eon stirs.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1717918794
• ISBN13: 9781717918796
• Release Date: November 2018
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 36 Pages
• Weight: 0.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.1" x 6.0"