Great Unconformity

[cordilleran2]

"Great Unconformity"
I look, and see a pale rose
pleasing to behold
from a distant land
growing in a crack of stone
that spans a billion years
of deep time, lost memories,
and forgotten landscapes,
and I wonder how this will end.

Because as a rule I either
fall in love quickly
Like a meteorite
Plummeting to earth
from on high,
Destroying myself in the process...

Or not at all:
as resistant as the Matazals;
Those thrice-island
quartzite mountains
almost as old as time,
Lashed both by monsoon storm
and ancient wave,
And she breaks...
and leaves in silence.

And when I fall
it's usually for those who
plot to destroy me
and all I stand for,
Who seek to manipulate me
into oblivion, killing me slowly and
I end up writing angry poetry
At the end of all things,
adding them to the list
of those who have come before:
A litany of damnatio memoriae.

Now I stand at the edge,
staring at this Great Unconformity
of thought between my two reactions,
At this lovely pale rose
in an unexpected place.
I feel abject terror, unsure,
uncertain whether to reach or run,
nervous about endings while
butterflies wielding wings
of obsidian knives
are fluttering in my stomach.
Why her? Why me? Why now?
Why... anything?

Why not?