Dear Friends, I have simplified the true story of
the Grand Canyon of Arizona by leaving out the
plethora of scientific details, & the various theories
of scholars about its formation! Presenting here the
more popular version for your kind appreciation!
Therefore, I have used only a part of my Notes on
the subject. Kindly don’t forget to read Part Two
later, for the total story. No need to comment in
a hurry! Thanks, -Raj.

STORY OF THE GRAND CANYON IN
VERSE : PART ONE- BY RAJ NANDY

              BACKGROUND
Our unique planet earth on which we reside,
Remains restless and dynamic, which in its
bowels it hides!
Titanic forces have been at work since our planets
formation; (App. 4.5 billion years ago)
Tectonic plates collided shaping continents,
along with quakes and volcanic eruptions!
Mighty glaciers had formed and receded, while
forces of nature did shape,
When mighty Himalayas and the Rockies rose
up, as we see them on date!
Several species evolved and of multifarious kind,
Leaving a trail of geological mysteries behind!
Geologists have tried to figure out what caused
the rugged Rockies to rise,
From miles below the surface of the earth,
stretching across 3000 miles;
Across New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming and
Montana, all the way up into North Canada;
To become the longest mountain chain of
North America!
The Geologists speculate that the heavier
Pacific Oceanic Plate, had moved northwest
under the North American Plate;
And as a result of this geological seduction
and embrace,
A split had opened up in the American West!
Such mountain building activity or ‘Orogeny’,
Had occurred in several phases during Earth’s
evolving history!
But mostly it occurred during the ‘Age of the
Dinosaurs’ in the Mesozoic Age,
Around 100 to 200 million years hence!
Now cutting across million years of Geological
History,
I come to the Colorado Plateau to commence
my Grand Canyon Story!

THE COLORADO PLATEAU
The awesome forces which raised the Rocky
Mountain Chains, also raised the Colorado
Plateau at a later time once again!
But during the Plateau’s gradual rise there was
surprisingly no devastation,
As the well preserved sedimentary layers rose
up with the Plateau without deformation!
Like an elevator traveling upwards this Plateau
gradually rose,
Along with its several embedded rock layers,
with which it was composed!
The Plateau is scattered over an area of some
1300,000 square mile as we know;
Going clockwise it covers Arizona, Utah, Colorado,
and the State of New Mexico!
Within this rugged area are located the Grand
Canyon, Grand Staircase, Bryce and Zion Canyon,
Arches, National Bridges, Monument Valley,
Glen Canyon, and Lake Powell.
It was Major John Wesley Powell a Geologist,
a brave solder and an explorer,
Who during the 19th century had mapped the
entire Grand Canyon area;
By sailing down the treacherous rapid infested
and uncharted Colorado River!
During the American Civil War Powell’s right
hand was amputated,
God bless his soul for the work he had initiated!
(The area from Bryce Canyon down to the Grand Canyon
is referred to as the ‘Grand Staircase’ due to the existing
land features!)

THE SOUTHERN RIM OF THE PLATEAU
Standing near the edge of more easily accessible
Southern Rim, one gets captivated by the sculptured
beauty and brilliant colors of sedimentary rock layers;
Which also captivated the imagination of tourists,
geologists, painters and explorers!
Geologists have opined, that till 80 million years, this
area was inundated by the Sea several times;
By dating the limestone and marine fossils on the
top Kaibab Limestone Layer they now find!
The lowest rock basement of this Plateau the
Vishnu Schist, dated as a third of our Earth’s
total age, still exists! (Dated as 1.5 billion years.)
Yet the dominant color of the layers of the
Canyon is of a reddish kind,
Due to iron deposits in the layers that we find!
Standing on the edge of the Southern Rim one
is struck by the grand panoramic view and its
macro immensity !
Gazing into a 1500 meter deep gorge carved into
nearby horizontal sedimentary rocks, - a stark
reality,
Where Man becomes aware of his own micro
fragility!
These layers were deposited 500 million years ago,
Prior to the elevation of the Colorado Plateau!
Viewing this testament to Nature’s magnificence,
Man loses himself for a while, to become transfixed
in space and time!
Though there are other deeper canyons in this
world we know, but none are more impressive
or grander;
So Major Powell named it the ‘Grand Canyon’,
which had also made him to wonder!

GRAND CANYON AND THE COLORADO RIVER
The Grand Canyon stretches from Lake Powell near
Utah-Arizona boarder right up to Lake Mead,
Is around 277 miles long with a max width of 18 miles,
and a max depth of around 6000 feet!
The Canyon proper is located in the northwestern
portion of Arizona, in the midst of the Grand Canyon
National Park,
Where the Colorado River bisects this Park into
Northern and Southern halves!
The Northern Rim is a 1000 feet higher and is ideal
for rafters, trekkers, and cliff climbers.
The better connected South Rim has around 5 million
visitors annually!
But the affluent few with lesser time, visit the glass-
bottom horseshoe shaped ‘Skywalk’ in the western
section, in Hualapai Indian Reservation territory!

             CONCLUDING PART ONE :
The question that intrigue Geologists and the visitors
alike, is how the Colorado River did shape,
The mighty Canyon through this great depth?
Before giving you the answer in Part Two
I must pause here to quote,
Lines from the poem “Grand Canyon” which
Lisa A Williams once wrote; -
“I look to the depths far, far below,
To crevices and caverns formed long ago.
To twisting trails, ledges steep,
Winding rivers with pools so deep! ..........
Cascades of color with each sunrise,
Golden walls with lavender hues,
Shades of pink and smoky blues.
Rainbows of stone, dance in fading light,
Lengthening shadows, with approaching
night . …………….
A brush in hand the painter can see,
The miracle of nature and all it can be.
Trying to capture the beauty of age,
Seems impossible with human gauge!
So much to take in, the eyes try to behold,
An ancient image of creation so bold.
Formed by ice and melting snow,
An artist’s canvas sketched long ago!”
-  by Lisa A Williams.

Dear readers, later in the second part of this
story,
I shall conclude by telling you how the
Colorado River in all its pristine glory,
Carved out this vast Canyon through million
years of our Earth’s History!
Part two will be posted later after a break
surely,
Thanks for reading patiently, from Raj Nandy
of New Delhi.
*ALL COPYRIGHTS ARE WITH THE AUTHOR ONLY

The old blanket is so hard to discard

dramas have unfolded in its folds
upheavals of winter's orogeny
trills of two birds in ecstatic thrill
to the rest in the ripened knowledge

we have made a home
we have earned it.

In the still of night
under the old blanket
the tales are relived
without a touch
a word..

The old blanket is so hard to discard.

Books are for imprudent tonicity
Imprudent – not understand totality
Of books – suffer of turgidity:
The poet are blessed of tranquility
Of books as they work in torridity
Where books are the only security.
They take away our minority.
If you believe in their agility
You will experience seniority.
Have faith in their mobility.
Irresponsible insult reality -
Reality is book’s relativity
In our life and its polarity:
Joining two poles – absurdity
With intelligence and precocity.
Hence friends! Value the ministry
Who control the Money’s orogeny.

Parable of Mikeas: “Once upon a time, the donkey Mikeas, where he lived with a villager near Profitis Ilias, walking near this promontory, m always called his attention to the water layers that tickled him because of the orogeny where he rested his feet. In the low degree of donkey evolved from him, with his friable adventures of the animal groom, he continued west towards Salakos, near Mount Profistis Ilias. He went every day for that route, but one day he twisted his ankle, being able to continue walking with his fingers. His heel was similar to that of Achilles, therefore he feared he would not be able to return home from Molokos, the Nymph was trying to get out of the spring, trying to be able to bear his capricious load on the underside of his ribs, but the cobblestones made him overly tired. way, therefore he had to drink fresh water near the spring. When Achilles suddenly appears saying: “I wounded King Telephus. The wounds did not heal, and Telephus asked for an oracle, which said "he who hurt will heal. From this same stones full of twisted earth I will do the same with you, Micah ”. He missed the donkey when he saw that his wounds were adorned in pale blue, letting his foot mold into the curvatures of the floor, contracting Mikeas's tendon. After Achilles vanished near the mute donkey, he saw how orchids in the shape of bees came out, thus being branches that moved horizontally from the horn of a fawn Lady Platonis, who was holding on to the humid forest to affirm Mikeas of the stirrup of Achilles, indicating with his right horn that he could go back home, to Profitis Ilias "

Greek-Orthodox parable: “in the sacramental, Jesus and his Apostles, continued with their faithful apostolic icons in Salakos, from the same source of the roar of the source of the Lion and the Nymph, each claiming to be the separate component divided into its half exact of those who moan of Catholicism, when one more apostolate extended further from the Mediterranean of Christian primitivism on the side of the Lion and Rabbinic Judaism, in the conciliation of the Mashiach, and their Abrahamic legacy even being separated from each other, Mikeas he joined again after the birth of his scab, re-emerged from his ribs, such as that of Jesus on the binominal shoulder of Golgotha ​​and Gethsemane, as a Templar after the temple of King Solomon was destroyed. The Lion stretched out his leg and the Nymph received in her hands the reality of conciliation, under a species unification that will contain dominance near the springs that will act as a nativity between Rhodes and Patmos, transforming the viaducts into anti-heresy or heresiology from the same binominal spring, for all the priests who never understood that it was the Division of the World into two unknown parts, if only a donkey-like Mikeas would unite them so easily.

(Procoro takes a similar image of Vas Auric and reflected it with the twilight sun on the plans of the temple of Omega that are going to be built, reflecting his heraldic prose image in that of the Lion and the Nymph being fed by the Good Dew adventure in the landscapes that continued to be traveled by the remaining parts of Mikeas)

The temperature prepares to depart the station
But hangs instead in canyon air
Akin to nothing.

Fields of hay and stacked rocks make
These simple landscapes a contrivance.
As one peers through mountain glint
Of disembodied ranges,
Doubling back on memory masked,
Thoughts one wanted returned
In a voice no longer heard.

Each day that song
Down country lanes play
Beyond freshly painted paddocks,
Footbridge and pond.
Its bent notes shade
Into black earth
An evening volley of air.
41st and Ogallala. Boulder County.

These canyons came up quickly
During the Laramide orogeny

The debts of Fall weigh down the mountains
With broken leaves and desperate moss,
A silhouette skin of Winter’s harvest.

Still,
The cows do not know
How seasons pass before you without much bother
Capturing certain days wholly
Letting others escape entirely.

In Spring,
exiled ghosts appear,
To hunt down their infrequent presence,
To capture grass through spectral fingers
And dust the glass upon the skin
They speak in infinite, earthen memories
With willing boots listening
And walking beside you.

Change is tedious
and does not happen
in a single night

It takes time to
move, to uplift
to push and pressure
into your next form

Remember to be forgiving
it is not as if
the Rockies or
the Himalayas
punish themselves
for taking millions of years
to grow to their height

And it is not as if
the Appalachians feel down
about their change
from sky-cutting magnificence
to tired, rolling hills

Time touches us all
for better or for worse
for building us up
or eroding us away
but in the end

mountains are not
made with serenity.
their peaks are
not carved calmly,
nor carved neat.
we too cannot be made
gently,
or with careful precision.

Do not forget:
becoming
is as tumultuous
as orogeny