A Poem About a Rock: Journey to the Center of a Geode

For my geology course this semester, mineralogy and crystallography, I was sent home with a a geode. My classmates and I were to examine the quartz hidden inside of a rock, and write something about it. My professor jokingly said he wanted someone to write a poem about their rock. To that I said, challenge accepted. Hope you enjoy what I came up with.

At the plateau on the edge of adventure

I have become a millimeter of myself for this observation.

The rough canyon walls below me, littered with grey and beige,are

plain but pregnant of promise of the treasurous sight within

The hidden depths I now turn toward, genesis.

To avoid the bubbling boils of the red bogs scattered in northwest,

Blue lake perilously cascading from the east into the abyss,

And a bewitching wonder of the white ice rim to the north,

My journey must cut through the desert of night,

Growthless and gloomy, grey ground while I globe-trot.

The center is approaching as I notice a transparency,

The ground turns to clouds as I close into the cavern

Which is, as I peer down, filled with the spectacle I have seeked to sight.

An irresistible underground of shimmer in the deepest darkest depths drawing

Even guarded gazers to plunge into the grey gorge, guided by greed and not gravity.

The wanderers do not return without new wisdom when after wayfare,

For the even smallest lesson from this to each man is different.

Whether warning of greed or encouragement of gratitude

All observations made are only made minor or major by those who beheld:

This is the journey to the center of a geode.