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// 26 - Subduction Zone (free verse) 
// Story: Ponyville & Other Poems 
// by AugieDog 
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Pay attention,
And each step you take
Will sink your hoof
Into ages long forgotten.

Time means nothing to a rock
When it's dancing,
And rocks are always dancing,
Sliding from a fiery birth
Through a cold and quiet life
To a death that isn't a death
Anymore than their life
Is really a life
Or their birth
Is really a birth.

Rocks aren't alive.
That's the first thing you learn about them
When you study them.
But the youngest of them
Is still very, very old.

The elements that make up a rock
First formed inside a star
So far away from here and now
That even its light had scattered
Into the cosmic background
Before Princess Celestia
Ever sank a hoof
Into the soil of Equestria.

The elements that make up a rock
Spun and churned through
The infinite blackness of space
Until the gravity of our star's formation
Lassoed them and pulled them in,
Corralled them and forced them together
Deep beneath the surface
Of this planet we call Equestria.

The elements that make up a rock
Get very, very hot when this happens.
And when they're hot and spinning,
Churning and dancing,
It's hard to contain rocks.
They come sliding up
Through vents below the sea
Or bursting up
Through volcanoes
Dotted all across
The surface of Equestria.

And when the elements that make up a rock
Come squishing or tumbling
Out into cooling water or air,
They sigh and settle,
Cuddle close and sleep
And turn into a rock,
That rock right there,
The one you set your hoof next to
When you took that step.

More rocks came up behind it
And pushed it along slowly,
Slowly, oh, so slowly
Until eventually and inevitably,
That rock will drift and dance
Into another crack in Equestria's crust
And get pulled back down
Into the magma
Where it'll stir and crunch,
Waken and crack,
And boil away into its raw elements again.

This'll go on and on like this,
Rocks coming out and going in,
Age upon age upon age,
While ponies step between them
And look at them
And think about them
For as long as Princess Luna
Doesn't let Equestria get hit by a passing comet 
Or Princess Celestia 
Doesn't let Equestria get subsumed
As the sun moves steadily along the path
Toward becoming a red giant.

And how likely is either of those things?