An Aberrant Lesson in Geology

Every stone is different.

Even snowflakes can’t compete.

What does & doesn’t

linger with the melt.

I challenge you

to find its doppel-

gänger. Like a face you’ve

seen on subways—then never

spot again

despite the birthmark

on a cheek, mirroring

Richard Thomas, or the crater

in the visage of

Dafoe.

We write off scars

as ghastly—yet the zenith of

what survives. Just ask

Joaquin Phoenix, lifted from the

embers by his cleft.

There are flecks upon a stone—

like stars they look alike.

But only from afar.

Infinity makes us blind. As moles

which swim through earth.

Nescience isn’t bliss

it is our downfall.

The rock within my palm

is a mini-mountain. Its peak

like Matterhorn’s. Even now,

microbes scale its summit.

I’ll refuse to give them glory—

will turn it on its head,

shake them off like pepper.

And if that will not suffice,

I will hurl it in the sea as

if the boy I used to be:

an asteroid 

plunging in the gulf,

extincting the terrible

lizards, pretending its flames

are doused.

None of us heal

the same. Catch the runnel

in the chin of

Harrison Ford. Take a blade

between your jowls,

then say it isn’t so.

We’re the echo of upheaval.

We’d have no poems without.

You and I still

saurians in the shale. No iridium

in the layers. A stratum is the

futon for demise.

Behold—it will take

five million years to paddle

back—this snippet of a

boulder tossed as dross;

no flag or hint another

held it fondly, had the might of an

irate god, the callousness to

fling it through the sky; the sound of

the same-old plop, sight of its

humdrum riffle, 

as though I’ve failed to

fathom it’s one of a kind.

Andreas Gripp  

October 16, 2026

photograph: Johner Images