Rock Cut

April 8 2017

The rock cut

glittered with quartz.

In its darkened well

a ribbon of road,

thin asphalt

the weight of rock.

Sheer vertical walls

as if they were carved;

the diamond-tipped teeth, titanium arms

of some leviathan saw,

screeching through

solid rock.

Except it was TNT

in a massive charge.

Civil engineer

as anarchist,

toying with dynamite

in hard hat

corporate tie.

So the route need not vary,

flat as a level

due north.

Steam-rolled pavement,

through boreal forest

over muskeg and swamp

splitting igneous rock,

as if a ruler had been placed

between 2 points,

its builders instructed

to muscle through.

As if the planet's surface were true,

time

of the essence.

Eyes on the road

enclosed in tinted glass.

The cut, whisking past

in a heedless blur,

millions of years

of geologic time

reduced to seconds.

Cold rock, unearthed,

basking in sun

unaccustomed air.

Its granite face

in gradations of pink, and grey

catching the last

glimmer of light.

I glimpsed this reproduction in the Saturday Arts section: an ad for a gallery.

It immediately struck me how familiar and generic a rock cut like this appears to us. And how we tunnel through in a straight unerring line, as if the land were inconsequential, its vast history of no useful interest.

Except that the last rock cuts I drove through were, compared to this image, absolutely sheer and geometric: a perfect aesthetic for human mastery over nature.

Roads originally followed the path of least resistance. They may have been refined from cow paths, or may have taken advantage of trails made by wild animals. When you had to be observant, pick your way, detour around obstacles. When we moved in nature, not willy-nilly through it.

(I have some questions about the artistry here. It's an almost photographic rendering, and as such is technically impressive (as pretty much any visual art is to me, since I haven't progressed much further than stick figures and finger paint!); but I wonder what it actually says, what the artist wanted to express. Because the piece lacks any sense of narrative, any human interest, any particularity of place. ...So, could that be his message: the absence of people in a landscape that has been altered by man, yet where nature's majesty and indifference persist intact and undiminished?)