Inside every rock is a story of how it came to be                          

And on the outside is another, of its journey to the sea  

For everything was born to die, to be made and then undone  

To serve as the stuff of making, because creation isn’t done

 

When you stand on the top of a mountain, look around and you will see

The mountains wear a skirt of rocks eroded from the peaks

Ice and snow and the rain that falls carry them to merry streams

Ever smoother as they tumble into sand for the waiting seas   

  

Sand forms rocks deep underground that rise as mountains high             

Until the waters wear them down again and bare their roots to the sky

The heat of the sun and the cold of night, and the grinding of the ice

Combine to carve this land we see into an earthly paradise 

 

Life does her part, for She has learned some cunning tricks

Silica and calcium build shells and bones like bricks

When her creatures die the hard parts pass into the deeps

Burial and pressure form limestone while Earth sleeps

 

Heat from our planet’s burning heart drives currents through the earth  

Magma rises from below and to volcanos it gives birth

The sea floor spreads from giant faults, carries islands on its back

Then dives beneath the continents on an ever-moving track  

  

Mountain ranges rise and fall, mighty oceans form and close

New lands are born and waste away or fall to nature’s blows

Ephemeral are we who live upon the surface of this earth

Everything that falls repeats itself and will surely find new birth