Shape-Shifting: The Metamorphic Rocks

Thin sheets of sediment,

amorphous phyllo,                  

acres in extent, are

buried under flows

of gravel, mud or lava;

each horizontal layer

descends beneath the

weight of new deposits

and in the process

sheds its water and its air.

As pressure forces grains

together, coats them

with a fine cement of

minerals emerging

slick from their dense solutions,

new rock begins to grow

like baklava, placed

down in sheets of phyllo,

honey, butter, nuts

in shallow pans of salten sea,

and even as the rock

is formed, the sea with

its encompassing land

moves gently forward

to converging boundaries,

where continents collide

with oceans, islands

form and disappear, where

sheets of rock slide down

to fiery depths, are shaken,

torn, and softened so the

sheeted layers of rock

can now be pushed and pinched

and pleated into

vast accordions of stone.

There, too, in infinite,

slow, furious, tumult,

the very substance of

the rock is changed, its

molecules and atoms shift,

bonds break, decay, re-form

on microscopic

dancing floors where atoms

waltzing, reeling, twirl

new substance into being.

Limestones turn to marble

then, and shales to slate

and schist; new rocks emerge,

new stones are born as

matter glides to sleeker form.

Immensities of rock

are sunken, twisted,

cooked, like crumpled sheets of

baklava, which baked

in subterranean stoves, will

someday rise and rising

shake the very earth

which they create and then

in geologic

time, dissolve and start anew.

Shape-shifting stone that slides

into fresh form and

essence new, as heat and

depth and time supply B

this is metamorphic rock!

Sr. Sue Elwyn, SSJD

St-Lambert, QC 2005

Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō Eruption 1983 . USGS