Earth Tone Eyes

Imagining living organisms turned to stone is sensory and poetic in light of the asymmetric direction of time careening from the Devonian over 350 million years ago, into the epoch of industrialized humans called the Anthropocene.

"What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. ...In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them."
― John Lubbock, The Beauties of Nature

Petoskey Stone
image: Michelle Pemberton

Considering a highly polished Petoskey stone, one imagines Earth tone eyes peering from hexagonal sockets.

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."
― Mark Twain

Petoskey stones are fossilized rugose coral. Rugosa are an extinct order of coral that thrived during the Devonian.

Fossilized coral is commonly found near the town of Petoskey in Michigan's Lower Peninsula.

The hexagonal sockets were once the coral's mouth, now frozen in time.

Close-up Petoskey Stone
image: Michelle Pemberton

"Time is the longest distance between two places."
― Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie

REFERENCES

• 350-Million-Year-Old Fossil Stone Dug Up in Mich, Patrick J. Kiger, 24 September 2015.
• Petrosky Stone, Wikipedia
• The Beauties of Nature and the Wonders of the World We Live in, John Lubbock, Kirk Press, 13 October 2011.