archean (noun)
pronounced /ɑːrˈkiːən/
from the Ancient Greek arkhe (ἀρχή)
meaning “beginning” or “origin”
A geological eon.
It begins four billion years ago
and lasts a billion and a half more.
At its dawn, there is silence
a world where nothing grows
no voice has ever called out.
Skies of acrid volcanic gas
not yet softened by oxygen.
On the surface, a dark ocean
broken by sharp, black crests
of newborn rock.
Hidden far beneath the seabed
the red-orange glow of a young planet
roiling
in slow heat.
The first protocontinents are rising
the Earth, as we will know it,
emerging.
Great expanses of new crust are thrust out
then sink back to the depths
recycled into mantle.
Echoes of the primeval age harden into rock,
the layers twisted and folded by tectonic force.
Canadians will one day call this Shield.
And in this ancient Archean time
of raw, geologic power
life appears.
