M I R A G E
And Pleasant Dreams Pamela Lee Jane contends rocks are alive. She reminds us of the many ways we know they move and mutate — ways we discount with our instant data and impatient misperceptions. Rocks live in slow-motion cycles, cycles of birth, accretion, and decay so slow time-lapse photography once an eon might record the alluvial silt laid down, strata tilted, then upthrust, or earthquake overturned, the grinding glacial creep of Ice Age boulders to end erratic sentinels in dried-up lakes, river stones tumbled and polished in their progress toward the sea, volcanoes forging lava, pumice, beads of glass, ice — or lichens — wedging cracks in slabs, whose crumbling surfaces become some windblown bits of dust, destined to come to rest in another river bed. With any luck, there’ll be a Jane there to see them properly covered and wish them all Good-night.
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