Basalt Castles

A Little Note

The Photo:

Ancient basalt columns millions of years old still stand hundreds of feet tall in a jagged line against the sky in Dry Coulee of Eastern Washington State.

The Thought:

Most of the basalt columns in eastern Washington are smooth on the top, eroded by the Ice Age Floods thousands of years ago.

But today we took a different road home, Dry Coulee Road. We found ourselves in an eerie ancient land seemingly driving along castle walls with eerie guards across the top — the jagged edges of what must be slowly eroded, softer basalt.

Here’s where we were– there’s a road there now. The map is from the booklet at Eastern Washington University’s Digital Commons.

Geology of the Grand Coulee by Joseph G. McMacken, 1937.

For information about the ice age floods, see:

Channeled scablands of eastern Washington: the geologic story of the Spokane flood Paul L. Weis, William L. Newman, and U.S. Geological Survey

I had to take a picture and write the poem. 

Poetry

Basalt Castles

Eerie sentries guard
atop castle columns tall;
we pass in silence.

Sheri Edwards  
05.19.24   140.365.24
Poetry/Photography

#smallpoems #clmooc  #poetry24 #poetry #basalt #grandcoulee #castles #basaltcastles #haiku