When Hansel, sister Gretel mark their way,
They leave a trail of breadcrumbs to define
The path they’ve tread, retraced at end of day.
Their wish to scamper home demands the line.
But breadcrumbs made of stone tell diff’rent tales.
Dropped from volcanic vents, they lead not home.
Broadcast when glowing edifice exhales,
When they detached from rhyolitic foam.
And as the bubbles grew, they stretched and cracked
Brittle and ductile, like a crusty bun
Rheology of glowing glass intact
They log the speed of their eruptive run.
When ashfall buries house of gingerbread
The breadcrust bubbles mark only the dead.
Other geosonnets: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67