Once long ago, hot fluid rock irrupted, blistered up between and beneath dead oceans, then cooled into a hidden lens that capped deeper fire. Wind scoured it, rain wore it down, but it still grew until it blew itself up then collapsed. A pluton. A laccolith. A volcano. A caldera. These concentric baffles are the places where the whole story is laid out, but I can’t read it with any sure sense I know what happened and when. Some days I feel like that: like I’ve been taken apart, reshuffled, know there’s things missing and I’m still trying to make it make sense. This self, this Solitario; no quest, just a traveler’s field notes.
