Below its leathery crust
the earth has no assignable strength.
Although twice as rigid as steel,
it appears nearly weak as water.

Its rigidity seems to decay
to zero when pressure prolongs
for periods no greater
than fifty thousand years. Why,

the geologist wants to know,
is the earth so sensitive
to surface loads? Science blames
high interior temperature,

keeping terrestrial atoms
in continuous thermal dance;
but I think it’s the shock of life
evolving such pointless forms

as the sine waves of speech, the roar
of diesel engines, the high whine
of aircraft shocking the atmosphere.
The heat that keeps the interior

from crystallizing’s a formal
byproduct of thought. The movement
of the crust, shaking and rupturing
and discharging lava and ash,

responds sufficiently to speech,
prayer, sermon, exhortation—
acknowledging that under
the leathery human surface

comparable forces occur,
folding tissue over and over
to form the endless mountain chains
everyone learns to admire.