From Baja Sur to San Jacinto Peak
900 miles of grinding plates and subduction
scrapped off the slab
debris peppers soaring ridges, a fault block of granite
squeezed between the San Jacinto on the west
San Andreas on the east
batholith bursting chanting magma
notes of granite
most abrupt fault scarp in North America
going from sea level to 10,000 feet in a few miles
holding metamorphic, all the way to Chino Canyon
(Dike is a tabular discordant pluton;
width a few inches to many feet.)
Colorado subdivision of Sonoran
rich with herbaceous annuals…
creosote, cholla, yucca
Coulter pine, ironwood
smoketree, palo verde
trails carved by mule deer and bobcat
turns of cactus mouse, jackrabbit tail black
leaf-nosed bat, spadefoot toad
stoping might stop us from holding topaz
dissolved to compose series of rock stops