Rock rap

The park ranger strode silently onto the small stage in the front of a room about half full of tourists. He carried a jagged piece of reddish rock – about the size of a football – in his hands.

A stool stood in center stage, behind a microphone. The ranger gently placed the hunk of rock on the seat and lowered the microphone to within a few inches. Then he walked off stage.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.” A voice boomed over the public address system. “I come to you today from the wall of the Grand Canyon – about two thousand feet below the south rim.

“ But I wasn’t always on the side of the cliff. For millions of years, I was buried – at first a quarter of a mile from the Colorado River and thousands of feet below the surface of the earth.

“But, over the millennia, my brother and sister rocks slowly washed away and the canyon became deeper and wider until, a few hundred years ago, the surface finally came to me.

“My destiny is to erode – just as my ancestors have – and to flow down the river to the sea. The ranger brought me here today to tell my story to you…”

It was a clever and captivating lecture – ostensibly offered by an inanimate object, but filled with interesting information offered from a unique perspective.

Delighted, I sat beside my young fiancé, thoroughly enjoying the moment. The fantasy, laced with science and history, our proximity to the edge of the two-mile wide canyon, the excitement of our retreat to one of the world’s most romantic attractions, and the novelty of being at the Grand Canyon in winter all combined to make the moment unforgettable.

I’ve been to the Park many times. It never fails to captivate; but knowing how much it has changed over millions of years and how insignificant the span of my lifetime is in that context, leaves me wondering: How does my little life fit into the scheme of things.

Then, I remember that rock and all of its colleagues. After waiting, patiently, for millions of years, they finally enjoyed a brief time in the sunlight before the water and wind and weather tore them loose from the canyon wall and pounded them into tiny particles that were washed down the Colorado to the sea.

When I think about it, it sometimes seems more remarkable that I got to meet that rock during my brief span than that the rock had a chance to speak to me. I wonder whether that rock saw and learned more while clinging to the side of the cliff than I’ve ever known.

Look out for talking rocks.