Then Violets Bloom

Then Violets bloom
From the hard rock
Awakening me.

Three Billion years,
Within a lifeless Earth
Deep, dark and hot,
Slowly was I,
In nightmare
Stretched and kneaded,
Wrought and wrung
To seaside rock-
‘Lewisian Gneiss’, *
Through and through,
Hard, cold and crystalline…..

Half a Million years ago,
Glacial ice
Licked my surface smooth,
Sculpting me to gentle curves.

Suddenly,

Explosions,
Shatter everything.
Make a cutting.
Build a road…..

Twelve more years
And in the cracks
Appear first ferns.

Then Violets bloom.
And from grey branches in the wood
Strange insects extend green wings,
As Elm buds
First reaching down,
Then up,
Are insects ready to fly,
Unfurling,
Into a forest of cherry blossom,
And birdsong.

*Gneiss is a hard, highly metamorphic rock, like granite but banded.