Living in upstate New York, I rarely think about the
slow-paced glacial retreat that influenced the landscape surrounding me. However, every time I visit the Rocky
Mountains, I am overwhelmed by the cataclysm that must have occurred in order
for them to exist. I wonder if people
living here ever mentally strip away the snow and evergreens and look at the
outline of the peaks with the obvious fingers of once flowing lava that brought
about these massive shapes.
I picture what it would have been like to watch….from a safe
distance in space, of course…as the earth spewed out its molten interior by
either projectile vomiting or gradual oozing.
What awesome power was required to force the mountains to such amazing
heights?
I imagine a divine conductor waving his baton and thunderous
orchestration accompanying the fireworks….sort of like cannon accompaniment in
the 1812 Overture, only infinitely louder and grander. A sweep of the baton producing a gigantic plume
of yellow and orange with a rumble followed by an eardrum shattering BOOM!
But today, out the window I can see white ribbons of sunlit
snow wandering through the dark evergreens.
Skiers and snowboarders gracefully fly down the solidified once molten
fingers with no thought to the unimaginable power contained by the fragile
crust on which we dwell.
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