SHITTY CONDON POETRY

A thin, icy, cloud painted crystals overnight onto chilly windshields

Till the morning’s faux summer-sun chased it into low places

Winter’s premature apparition melts in gullies, carved across sloping fields

Behold a golden diamond set in a blue dome of sky, quiet and still as if in permanent stasis

Until Winter’s specter fingers stretch forth, over brittle, golden-fields shivering

Birds bail out of the sky, as if some great dangerous tide is turning

I stand atop a deep cut scar, a canyon, a river’s ceaseless dithering

Gusting winds kick up a haze though no fire is left burning

This bird’s eye view reveals my path through history, those days of triple digits

The river, flashing cold blue grins, teases saying, “I still got your (pretty-good) fishing pole”

It seems unlikely that a river’s fits and starts, its endless fidgets

Would craft such nonsensical wondrous scenes — absent any goal

Though born of different mothers — those distant violent mounts, these carved out hills —

They put on similar fashions, they rock their gravity skirts

Strong gusts comb the blond stubble of this barren high desert, yet my nose fills

With juniper pollen, hints of sage — varieties of earthly dirts

This isolated house — it’s hearth — someone’s metaphor for heaven

Did it nurture its humans, or do tragic skeletons somewhere repose, without testament or will

I can see for miles and miles and not see one Seven Eleven

Or gas station for that matter, my sketchy gas gauge reading empty while slanted downhill

Those grasping spectral fingers from before

Dragging a cloud blanket behind me, to swaddle me in cold darkness

A crowd of fans are waving at the sun they adore

“We really love what you’ve done with these pressure gradients”, they confess

Winter seems certain to win this seasonal battle, yet one pinwheel yet strives

To blow the snow off the mountain (with picturesque backlighting)

The vanquished apparition rises from the valley again, as if with infinite lives

Who would have thought 23.5 degrees of tilt would guarantee forever fighting

WALLULA GAP: Bottleneck of the Ice Age Floods

When you first hear about how 15,000 years ago, glacial Lake Missoula broke free of its ice dam and raced across the Mid-Columbia Basin – some 500 cubic miles of water traveling at speeds of up to 80 miles an hour – you’re tempted to say bullshit.

That’s what most scientists thought when J. Harlen Bretz first proposed his theory of a great “Spokane Flood” in the early 1920s. But 30 years later, after he and others collected more evidence, and after the advent of aerial photography made it possible to recognize giant “current ripples” in suspect landscapes, scientific opinion began its necessary shift.

On a recent trip to the tri-cities, I spent time in the Horse Heaven Hills, south of Kennewick in order to see some of the evidence for ancient cataclysmic floods as laid out in Bruce Bjornstad’s guidebook, On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods.

Evidently, the Horse Heaven Hills form the defining southern rim of the Mid Columbia ‘Basin’ and when the floods came, the only way through this barrier was the relatively tiny, two mile wide, Wallula Gap.

Driving up the Columbia Gorge in early April was almost a metaphorical journey from darkness to light. Portland lay under its omnipresent gray overcast sky, an ambiguous ceiling that extended almost all the way to The Dalles. But eventually my weary truck broke out into the open, under painfully bright, blue skies where freshly weaned clouds floated peacefully in vast herds, grazing on invisible water vapor.

Pivot irrigation lends credence to the idea that spring has decided to hang out in Kennewick this year.

An idea that is easily dispelled around the next corner

I keep trying to decide if these are pretty or not…and I’m leaning towards pretty.

The trailhead to the Wallula Gap overlook lies on private property. The owners are very accommodating to hunters and hikers and have posted friendly signs that say (provided the bullet spray is light), “Hey, come on in and hunt if you want…just don’t stay overnight.” 

It’s just an extraordinarily bad place to wear an antler hat.

With no clear sense of direction and no compass, my first attempt to find the overlook trail failed.

…and those innocent clouds that had been feeding all day had been transmogrified into something somewhat more threatening.

A mini deluge ensued as the moon fought to ascend over the gap.

Moonrise over Wallula Gap

These long straight valleys are thought to be the result of floods that, “etched out the weaker basalt along one of many tectonic fractures that run through this area.”

On track and steadily gaining elevation (the city of Pasco receding in the distance).

Approaching the overlook.

Bjornstad writes that this cliff would still have been 80 feet under water at the height of one of the Ice Age Flood events.

The distinctive double pillars (Twin Sisters) and the surrounding tortured landscape are thought to be the result of backed up flood waters (from temporary Lake Lewis) squirting through the only available pathway to the sea.

This erratic granite boulder sits atop a plateau of black basalt that comprises the Wallula Gap.

An improbable journey.  A stowaway from a Montana Iceberg.

Muddy water from the Snake River mixes with the Columbia.

Temporary Lake Lewis would have buried the Tri-cities under 800-900 feet of water for almost a week before it would have drained out via the Wallula Gap. The arrival of Homo sapiens on the North American Continent is thought to have been made possible by a land bridge in the vicinity of Russia and Alaska. The land bridge appeared as more and more water got tied up in the continental glaciers of the Ice Age and sea levels receded. Evidence suggests this human migration happened 25,000 years ago – maybe 50,000.

It makes me wonder if there were witnesses to these floods – if early settlers – perhaps whole cultures - were swept away before they learned to read the stories recorded in this area's geology.

Notes:
See also Washington Road Trip - Only two CDs: http://thenarrativeimage.blogspot.com/2009/08/washington-roadtrip-only-two-cds.html for pictures of more Ice Age Flood artifacts including, Palouse Falls and way at the end, Frenchman Coulee, Agatha Tower, and The Fingers 

Most of the data regarding the Ice Age Floods is from Bruce Bjornstad's book, On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods: http://www.keokeebooks.com/IceAgeFloods.html

An excellent source for information regarding Ice Age Floods is Huge Floods.com: http://hugefloods.com/LakeLewis.html  I've linked to the page that describes Lake Lewis, but don't stop there. Huge Floods.com also features the paintings of Stev H. Ominski who tries to imagine what the Floods looked like.

Here is a link to the Ice Age Floods Institute. http://www.iafi.org/

For an impressive visualization of an Ice Age flood at Washington's Dry Falls, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqUyAFZFyVo

GEOLOGIC TIME

Driving east of Pasco

A cold wind blows – buffets the car like a boxer - seemingly inhospitable

Migrating bushes recklessly play chicken with cars – end up as grill decorations - gather together at barbed wire fences - share tales of their exploits



The land ripples and undulates as if it were water




Postulate God.
Does God watch the continents flow like we watch streams in the sand?

Second-hand topsoil – courtesy of Montana? Silt and dust blown across half a continent and some significant portion of an epoch

Palouse Falls State Park - Washington

Mindlessly following gravity’s imperative, water probes faults and chips away at basalt barriers. On one hand friendly and supportive of life, water is three faced and fickle and remains god’s tool of choice for wiping the earth clean of humanity – though fire is certainly in the running.






Magnificent floods spawned by an ice-age lake helped scour out this canyon to reveal early flows of lava – rivers of once molten rock that stretch all the way to the ocean.

Uncle Jon – Geologist - somewhere in West Texas

(Click image for somewhat larger view)

What could I see with a geologist’s eyes?

The telltale signs of a fortune in oil?

(Click image for somewhat larger view)

...a landscape from the Cretaceous?

(Click image for somewhat larger view)

...a resting place for creatures from the Oligocence?

We walk on top of many lost worlds, where life multiplied and thrived and was wiped away…

…almost.

(Click image for somewhat larger view)

Any Garden of Eden must be a temporary illusion – a window in time – a delicate balance of environmental factors that may cradle life, but could never support the excesses of a species.

Clone Tree Farm on the way back to Portland

Giants steal power from the river…

…and carry it away beyond the horizon.

We reach to catch the invisible currents flowing in the sky.

(Click image for somewhat larger view)

Racing westward on the freeway, the car hums.

“This has all happened before…and it will happen again.”

-Cylon hybrid-

These leaves that unfurl to greet the spring…

…are only just beginning to realize…

…they’ve been screwed by a beaver.

Speaking of geologists....this is my uncle Jon's book. I was privileged to accompany Jon on a fossil survey of sorts in West Texas back in 2004. I wrote a review of the book once, but I don't think Jon liked it very much. But the book is good and my review was heartfelt and so I'm reprinting it here.

Adventures in the Bone Trade:

The Race to Discover our Ancestors in Ethiopia's Afar Depression.

Adventures in the Bone Trade does the same thing for science that a stint on a church council does for one’s appreciation of organized religion. Namely, it reveals how our greatest accomplishments all rest on an unlikely scaffolding of both our best and our worst character traits.

This book is a curious mixture of Mr. Kalb’s expertise in geology/paleontology, and his amazing experiences in Ethiopia. But most striking of all is his self-deprecating honesty. He tells his stories by laying out events as matter-of-factly as he can, and then lets the reader make the judgment calls. If one must vicariously experience the drama that occurred in the Afar depression – become a vicarious-experience-parasite in other words - one could do a lot worse than use Mr. Kalb as a host.

The best thing about this ‘science’ book is getting a first-hand glimpse of scientists and what it is they do in-between those periodic headlines in the daily newspaper. It is one thing to read a scientific textbook filled with facts and theories. It is another thing entirely to watch scientists drink out of a baboon’s toilet.

Ideally, somewhere, paleontologists all work together as brothers and sisters, speaking the international scientific language and cooperatively advancing truth and knowledge…but not on this planet. Adventures in the Bone Trade reveals some of the dirty tricks that can be used to secure both grant money and prime fossil-rich real estate. Sadly, Mr. Kalb seems none to proficient at underhanded dealing (although one probably wouldn’t want to lend him one’s mosquito netting) and ultimately, his dreams must suffer for it.
The next time some kook walks up to you and says something like, “I successfully initiated cold fusion in this glass of water, but the keepers of the established scientific paradigm are engaged in a vast conspiracy to cover up my discovery.” Tell him to piss off. Because after reading Adventures in the Bone Trade, you’ll realize that the greatest prize in science is finding something new.

I'd put a link to Jon's Website here, if he had one. The book is still available at Amazon.