Eric Perry
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Eric is a writer whose poems have previously appeared in East by Northeast Literary Magazine. Eric currently lives in Rochester, NY, where he works for a local nonprofit. A lifelong lover of the written word, writing for Eric is an increasingly vital way to link his thoughts, feelings and experiences with the ongoing evolution of how he perceives the world.
The Universe Throws Down a Canyon
Ancient riverbankone day a chasm makes.River fish hold wisdomhallucinating epiphaniesfrom water running throughthis timeless stony channel.Silver bellied bassslip and slickthrough currents richin myth and sediment.Ballads echofrom coyote throatin yip and call,that carry down the canyonto play about crags and eroded crenellationsin the way that air moves through organ pipes,Troubadours yammeringan inheritance of song and saga.Stories passby osprey catchto nestlingswho with greedy downy gulpsingesttales recountingthe canyon’s creation.History, Legend.Is there a way to tell the difference?The canyon denizens do not clingto a linear life with only one point fixed on a distant horizon.Instead, a broad expanse of untampered livinga coetaneous harmonythat confounds the human mindleaving us with the self-tormented bewildermentover truth.
*
Is Water,the Great Sculptor,molding and shapingthe rock to createan endless masterpiece?A tapestry forever woven,a cathedral ever deepeningin baptisteries and grottoes.As quartz pressed in grays and tansspills to stormsof gold giving goethite,or, poursin blushed tones of rusty hematite;all over stenciled by ichnogenera,calcifier casts of foraminifera.Descending diplocraterioncross cut by trace passingsetched in claw and tail.Nature’s cuneiform recordingon chasm wallsthe history of time’s passage.
*
Was there oncea cosmic giant?In whose thrallthe Universe writheduntil casting aside her supernovan criesshe summoned one last rally.Fist clenched tightshe struck with a forcemightier than a meteor’s might,to crack her captor’s jawrend his flesh in her mighty mawdevour her foe in an unbiddable ravenous glut.His starlit blood sent spewingto scatter constellationsacross the great expanse.With immortality waning she let him fall,for eons his descent,until cut suddenly short to landon a new earthstill womb warmand malleable.His impact was a millstonegrinding earth to sand.As his momentumcleaved the supple firmamenta trench formed,the canyon was born.In decomposition he joined the matrixa posthumous alchemycementing the sediment.A legacythat couldn’t quite erase his rapine intent,nor forgive his violent soul,but in atrophyblessedan existence nonetheless.
From beginningscenturies grow to millenniums.Questions of originpale to the true wonder of timeand to the changes it brings,infinitesimal as they occur,if left unimpededcreate canyons.
*
Is Water,the Great Sculptor,molding and shapingthe rock to createan endless masterpiece?A tapestry forever woven,a cathedral ever deepeningin baptisteries and grottoes.As quartz pressed in grays and tansspills to stormsof gold giving goethite,or, poursin blushed tones of rusty hematite;all over stenciled by ichnogenera,calcifier casts of foraminifera.Descending diplocraterioncross cut by trace passingsetched in claw and tail.Nature’s cuneiform recordingon chasm wallsthe history of time’s passage.
*
Was there oncea cosmic giant?In whose thrallthe Universe writheduntil casting aside her supernovan criesshe summoned one last rally.Fist clenched tightshe struck with a forcemightier than a meteor’s might,to crack her captor’s jawrend his flesh in her mighty mawdevour her foe in an unbiddable ravenous glut.His starlit blood sent spewingto scatter constellationsacross the great expanse.With immortality waning she let him fall,for eons his descent,until cut suddenly short to landon a new earthstill womb warmand malleable.His impact was a millstonegrinding earth to sand.As his momentumcleaved the supple firmamenta trench formed,the canyon was born.In decomposition he joined the matrixa posthumous alchemycementing the sediment.A legacythat couldn’t quite erase his rapine intent,nor forgive his violent soul,but in atrophyblessedan existence nonetheless.
From beginningscenturies grow to millenniums.Questions of originpale to the true wonder of timeand to the changes it brings,infinitesimal as they occur,if left unimpededcreate canyons.
