I stand upon this grandest rim
Try to imagine unthinkable time
Relent before too long such fruitless task
Instead I’ll contemplate this lazy little rhyme

Through the plateau
The Colorado pickaxe falls
Reveals sedimental sandstone rings
The eons marked on canyon walls

Rock bottom finds the hardest rock
Twelve hundred meters down below
There an ancient granite shield
No deeper can the river go

But wider still
The river’s reach
A force of will
The cliffs be breached

Upstream the river
Has not yet found
The basement rock
So burrows still into the ground