After Brian McConnell’s fieldtrip

Translating rock outcrops
Basalts with Stereocaulon
green with chlorite and
slopes with Juniperus
in their spatial context
red with Jasper,
grey with cephalodia,
vesicles with Gymnomitrion

Into a creation story
Of the processes
that got these materials here.
Obsidian in volcanoclastics,
with Trapelia coarctata

Geographical analogies,
From Shanvallycahill trachyte,
with Lecanora muralis
Pine stumps still to be dated
to places with cherries

Now hundreds of miles
and a sea apart
from Girvan volcanics
Or a few thousand miles
and an ocean to cross
to a Newfoundland shore.