Erosion

By Geoff Hughes

I make my way along the rugged trail

Descending easily over rocks and roots,

A steep descent but legs and lungs prevail

Strapped into loaded pack and sturdy boots.

This canyon offers up no welcome mat,

No crews to keep the trail in top repair

But, here by choice, I never aimed for that.

I simply seek the joy of open air.

Yes, that and proof that at the big seven-O

I still have what it takes to climb the slope.

So down two thousand feet I aim to go.

To climb back out intact my only hope.

Switchbacks steep and perilous do greet

My every step, but right and left huge walls

Rise up and up, as if the clouds to meet

And leave me gazing humbly out in awe.

My pride in what I’m doing at my stage

Of life is held in check by nature’s realm.

These rocks, their stature, their unfathomable age

Have at the least the power to overwhelm.

They mock my seventy years.  “You’re old?” they say,

“Can you believe two billion since our birth?

So if one-up’s the game you want to play

I fear you’ll find out what your pride is worth.”

Descending still I reach a level field

And pause to contemplate the canyon walls,

See countless boulders that the cliffs still yield

And taluses that somehow break their fall.

They perch like statues on those littered slopes

Not moving now but clearly having moved

And moved again, as if belying hopes

Of tumbling to the bottom of this groove.

But clearly that’s ten million years away.

I stand and honor what I see today.

My pride’s eroded like these rocks.  My age

A trifle seen on God’s eternal stage.