The sand's so fine and light
It drifts across the beach
With any breeze.
But realize this sand is mountain stuff,
The ghosts of mighty peaks
That sheltered dinosaurs.
Inch by inch they crumbled.
Dinosaurs became just bones and tracks.
The mountains disappeared.
But slabs of rock don't really vanish;
They wear to cobbles, pebbles, grains,
Then wash down to the Mother Sea.
There they tumble out and back
A hundred million years,
Sheltering clams and crabs,
Until they fuse
To form the spine
Of mountains yet to rise.
©2003 John I. Blair
