Time Wrote the Rocks

from Secular Solstice [Official Canon] by Raymond Arnold

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lyrics

From desert cliff and mountaintop we trace the wide design,
Strikeslip fault and overthrust and syn and anticline. . .
We gaze upon creation where erosion makes it known,
And count the countless aeons in the banding of the stone.
Odd long vanished creatures & their tracks & shells are found
Where truth has left its sketches on the slate below the ground.
The patient stone can speak, if we but listen when it talks.

Humans wrote the book of earth...
Time wrote the rocks...

There are those who name the stars, who watch the sky by night,
Seeking out the darkest place, to better see the light.
Long ago, when isolation broke his weary will,
Galileo recanted, but the Earth is moving still.
High above the mountaintops, where only distance bars,
The truth has left its footprints in the dust between the stars
We may watch and study or may shudder and de-ny

Humans wrote the book of night…
Light wrote the sky

By stem and root and branch we trace, by feather, fang and fur,
How the living things that are descend from things that were
The moss, the kelp, the zebrafish, the very mice and flies,
Tiny, humble, wordless things how shall they tell us lies?
We are kin to beasts, no other answer can we bring.
The truth has left its fingerprints on every living thing.
Winnowed by an aimless game of birth and blood and strife.

Humans wrote the book of names...
Death wrote life

And we who listen to the stars, or walk the dusty grade,
Or break the very atoms down to see how they are made,
Or study cells or living things, seek truth with open hand
The pro foundest act of worship is to try to understand.
Deep in flower and in flesh, in star and soil and seed,
The truth has left its living word for anyone to read.
So turn and look where best you think the story is unfurled.

Humans write the book of truth...
Truth writes the world

credits

from Secular Solstice [Official Canon], released December 12, 2019

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all rights reserved

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