Our geological clock has no hands, no numbers, nothing designating seconds, minutes or hours. Its face is our natural landscape and it marks time using spires and fins stacked up at places like Canyonlands…. By the majesty of formations like Delicate Arch and the artistry of Looking Glass Rock and the vibrant glow of the red rock walls and sharp ridges surrounding Moab.
The clock has no chimes, other than occasional claps of thunder created by jagged bolts of lightening on the horizon, echoing for miles around. It delineates eons by the sandwiched layers of salt and sandstone left behind and the deep, meandering gorges revealed millions of years ago by the receding sea. Little remains of the sea that once covered this land, other than the muddy ribbons of the Colorado and Green rivers flowing through opposite sides of this expanse before they meet at their confluence.
The clock has no pendulum nor stem to wind it, no cord to plug it in for it’s a perpetual machine powered by a cool morning breeze that gives way, slowly, to the warmth of the desert sun that keeps it running into the evening when the wind picks up strong enough to power it through the night and make any tent sound like it’s coming apart or look like a pounding heart. No, this clock has no springs or ratchets, no hammers no brackets, no intricate flirts, or lugs, pallets or crutches, no barrels or wheels, no balances or weights. It’s not mechanical, it's ethereal, gauging our stewardship rather than our punctuality.
I love this idea and your exploration of it. The options are limitless, as long as there are no hands, no stem, no pendulum!
I keep coming back to this one!