these red rock canyons
recall the forces
we face
experiencing our own
cataclysmic events
upheavals, changing times
uncontrolled quakes
and the tumbling down
the glacial pace of erosion
until the eventual arrival
at our very own
angle of repose
these red rock canyons
reveal the millennia past
sand grain by grain
layer on layer
in gravity’s fate
records cast in reddish-brown
then a layer of ashen gray
perhaps an epochal era
when the sun went away
violent tectonics
pushed up
what water wears down
these red rock canyons
once oasis, once desert, once ocean
now stacked stone mountains
of petrified lives
that were once in motion
pressed into time
surrounding us
shoulders of boulders
out beyond our companions
we’ve found
sanctuary here
in these red rock canyons
Brooks Bradbury 