Solid Ground
Dec 17 2020
The longest night of the year,
when our short growing season
seems even more improbable.
A pale sun
rises barely halfway up the trees,
which stand forbearingly
in the brittle cold,
frozen sentinels
with dregs of snow
still clinging to their branches,
the thinly needled conifers
and those bared of leaves.
Beneath a few feet
of freshly fallen snow
the earth is at rest.
But the dormant grass
has burrowed its roots into the soil
which is not nearly so cold,
warmed by decomposition
and the nuclear heat
of disintegrating atoms in the planet's core,
the liquid magma
bubbling deep beneath the land
we call solid ground.
Appearances deceive;
the lifeless trees
and dead grass
and sterile field of snow.
Even the ground beneath our feet
is not as constant as we thought;
a continent floating on liquid rock,
and the heat of a small sun
10 kilometres down.
A mere 6 minutes by car
an hour or two to walk.
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