Things looked different before I got into geology:
When I was seven years post-birth,
I thought the Earth was made of earth.
I’d dug a hole, on hands and knees,
Aimed straight at the Antipodes –
Specifically, at Alice Springs.
I’d scratched and scraped with trowels and things;
Sometimes the going got quite tough,
But what came out was earthy stuff.
So Earth was earth. I’d proved it so:
However deep my hole would go,
No basement rocks, no sills or dykes,
No faults appeared, no clints or grikes,
No mantle, crust or iron-rich core,
No sedimentary fossil-store –
A clear result from all my toil!
(And piles and piles and piles of soil . . . )