From The Visitor's Guide To Tectonics in Cascadia
Jennifer Drake Thornton
Welcome to subduction,
a metamorphic seduction:
the San Juan plate keeps shoving
past the boundaries of our shore,
pushing up the summits with a promise
made to every mountain in this range.
Don’t forget, we’re young here yet, 200
million years more modern than Spokane
and all parts east, according to the isotopes.
The country is still boisterous and overrun
with blackberries that mainline magma
until their fruit bursts into flame.
Any day could be the day this hope chest
breaks apart to pulverize the porcelain
beneath our feet, shatter every fireplace
and lace the ground with coals, release
a plague of ravens dragging giant waves
to sink our coastline back to myth.
We must warn you that the sky will offer
no asylum; there are no Perseid showers here.
Instead, in August, salmon hurl themselves
up waterfalls of thundercloud, return
home to the stars, shedding giant scales
that plummet down upon our soil and burn