its scary to think about how the earth is moving underneath

The movement of mountains

is charted in the paths

Of many pebbles,

marching cogs

in a monumental machine.

The Appalachians know

what haunts Mount Everest

and the Andes.

The Pacific Rim waits

for its turn to shuffle off

the burden of three oceans.

A quiet breeze

will carry the Rockies

to the other side of America,

one boulder

and a handful of desert sand

at a time.