Antiform, Tenby, Wales	This selection of geo-poetry looks at the significance of the Earth beneath our feet, starting with a simple riddle ...     Geologically Speaking I burrow down holes digesting the sods via umbilical pods, by subterranean calls I chart my maps like a global bat, flying through time I come from the past like a beetle in cast, as an ant moving mountains I slide and thrust boulders and crusts, like a permanent albatross held on the breeze I patrol the seas, and as golden eagle I view life’s drama in panorama. I am worm, bat and beetle I am ant, gull and eagle. Who am I?
Immortals falling - Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain      Sand The grain of sand saltates and rolls The river tumbles and roars Airs and oceans – they gust and gall Rise and fall The lowly worm digests and turns The bird sings songs and sours Fish and beasts – they hunt and call Rise and fall And we What do we do? We argue and war Rise and fall That path, that determination That history, that convocation That intension, that undulation It was only sand Silicon dioxide crystals bouncing in H2O. Beautiful, fascinating sand – Immortals falling.
Holding the line I am a survivor from a long line of survivors, about four per century, or forty since the doomsday book, and eighty from the Roman empire – anno domini or indeed eight hundred since the maximum extent of the last glaciation (or Palaeolithic). While the probability of survival is low, extremely low – this planet, this species, this time, this place (here and now) –  the probability that you and I come from a line of survivors is one. History has odds of 1:1, while the future has odds of N:1 (where N is large). That we have survived gives us no right to hasten the demise of others, or to forget the grim history and happenstance of survival. Indeed, the improving survival rate for our species threatens us all, and sustainability is the new line.	Ice line - East Greenland, 2005
Glacial delta, Jameson land, Greenland Tidal Deposits Led by an Emeritus Professor and a second still in his chair the select party set out across the flats to watch the Wash go by – but why? Ignoring the twitchers – proud watchers of dinosaur descendants we absorbed the subtle biota on the shifting sands Between land and sea – but which? Salt corn and other halophilic plants, algal mats and myriads of shelly fauna Arenicola, Cardium, Mya, Pecten, and Scrobicularia Mussels and Oysters for dinner – but where? Balanced at the interface between rising sea, subsiding marsh and migrating bars abused by the conflicting interests of farmers, tourists and industrialists – but when? Two thousand years after Romano-Britain began to re-work the shore now with 3km of agricultural and industrial coastal progradation still trying to hold back the sea – but how? Dykes, drains, pumps and groins Which cannot ultimately hold back the sea Which rises with our technology We’d be better to understand the writing in the sand as we live on a shifting land We should learn from the captain’s hand And the wise professor’s wand That’s why.
Folly Bridge All around the green cloistered quads of ivory towers sponsored by queens and gods over the bridges of folly, sighs and Magdalen from inside and outside the camera – theatres of the mind   the nerds are at it again turning worlds into coded trains of logic. Algebraic expressions for everything from termites to terminal ends of life as we know it.   Who’s in charge here? No one and everyone. We stumble along the banks of partial democracy through the shadows of temporary autocracy from deniable pasts to deniable futures inevitable history   And now we’re voting with our feet assembling at the stalls where Asia and Europe meet. Huang, Smith, Da Vinci, Nngugi, Jesus, Mohammed, Miriam and Mary – they are all here.   While democracy can control the foolishness of the few, it fails to limit the folly of us all. It is true that disseminated knowledge can liberate and empower us but a smidgeon of disinformation – hidden lies – can trap us all.   Now we know that access to knowledge is a pre-requisite to freedom of choice and that human rights and the passage to survival need science as an arbitrator. Hmmm   So then, the nerds are needed now.	Bridge of Sighs