3.9.2 haiku

Maryalice Yakutchik

Science Party / International Ocean
Discovery Program / Expedition 392
Agulhas Plateau
Hole U1580a

When the speaker barks,
we all rush to the catwalk—
Core is on the floor!

A hole is a whole
book of time to be savored—
Past informs future

Suspense—when after
travel, transit and pipe trip
first core comes on deck

There once was a chert
from Agulhas; fell into
our core to fool us

Soft and white like snow
nannofossils, more than stars
in a galaxy

Whitish-gray muck mud
deemed unremarkable—
keeps silent secrets

Clear and yet a haze
a fog bank rolls over me
shadows sediments

Tipped with a spear point
but eventless sediment
the form an idea

White chalk green clay chalk
warm greenhouse Earth history
code to the future

Well! this is core eight
still many more to drill
'til reaching basalt

Tracks and trails preserved
over millions of years
tales of ancient bugs

Fifty million
A rosette discoaster
Chosen for age

Core on deck they said
Did the band get together?
Diatoms aren't us

Even with slight change
these sections provide a tale
of circulation

Pulled from calm seas and
mottled with life of the past,
reveals what’s to come

A new wind blowing
Carries fine magnetic dust
Origin unknown

Moisture, density, color
Something missing in my data log—
Probably time?

Reading rock records
Could nature have rewritten
the first manuscript?

Nature's signatures
white shells of the sea remain
remnants of life past

Dark grey bands break up
the sovereign monochrome
Broken up pieces

We know half the tale
the other is lost to time
never recovered

Water in your pores?
Can I squeeze you just a bit?
Change the world we know

Life continues on,
A new world order rises.
Nothing is the same

KaTy’s Boundary
Subtle, but ever present
She yells: No samples!

Happy marine life
Swimming. Floating. Unaware,
Of what’s soon to come

Planktonic bliss
Destined for calamity
Agulhas chalk seas

At 6 I was on deck
seven cycles I reveal
Warm or cold, who knows

Filter-feeding this
screen inoceramid ring
bearing my era

What color is this?
Seems white, and it reverses
however poorly

White and grey segments
the look of marble counters
elevated fate

Red and white rhythms
telling secrets in cycles—
an anchor dropped.

Burrows and layers
life history and changes—
the green stuff is near

Green to red to beige
paleo-environment
colors reflect change

Deep in the core now
lithified and well preserved
forams a plenty

Cycles on cycles
repetition in time past
hints at the future

Turbated chalk
a little coccolith stands
for Cretaceous

Window to past world
shelly fossils suspended
in a blue-green sea

A dark sandy beach
beneath crumbling volcanoes
the tides never stop

Into the green clays
elements flow from the sea
reverse weathering

Underwater tales
of slow rains, quick storms—told in
vivid shades of green

Millions of years old
the minerals here still change—
diagenesis

Moving across time
who is carbon king and pawn—
what controls this game?

Fragmented gradient
mysterious origins
secrets to emerge

Zeolite is an
Earth mineral, mean and gree​n
as Oscar the Grouch

We have tried so hard
got nothing but core catcher—
must try hard again

The sorrow of an
empty liner—mocking our
attempts to advance

A great transition
from sediments to lava
everything changes

Creeping magma cooks
rocks black, green, red—Which hottest?
What may have been lost?

From deep inside the earth
I rose to conquer the world—
and was stopped by chert

You stagger my depths—
recovering in scuttling
night tones, never touched

Dare to discover
basalt rocks formed first on Earth
nucleus of rocks

Basalt weathering
makes celadonite and traps
carbon dioxide

Dark rock of the deep
ancient heat of Earth's forming
reclaims shells of life

Dark green bands trace crown
pockets of moss and faint stars
fade into basalt

Layers and layers
white, red, green, the life marine
the rock's life story

It is black, this one,
and stays normal, head to toes—
What does it tell us?

Dark like the new moon
above, basalt that formed
millions of years past.

Secrets of oceans
buried ancient live—discover
hidden past for most

Caught between two sills
condemned to existence in
darkness and pressure

A hiatus is
a recess of missing time—
What do we not see?

An exhalation
of gas in magma leads to
rock with vesicles

Big surprise appears
sediments below thick basalt
baked to perfection

Subtle colored bands—
where rocks were burnt by heat from
ancient volcanoes

A chilled margin shows
molten rock met sediment
not pleasant for both

Molten magma formed
olivine, pyroxene and
feldspar, last and least

I think that I shall
never see a fresh basalt
as lovely as thee

Taking time to cool,
large crystals give us a hint—
reveal magma’s past

When fresh rocks exchange
elements with seawater
it’s alteration

Within the stone
that the stone holds the stone
fingers interlocking fingers

Ode to the best bit
whose courage and fortitude
carried us so deep

Your loveliest lines
lie, left under layers, in
faults, slips and failures