Yesterday I walked by a job site where these magnificent creatures were huddled. They must have been buried where heavy machinery was digging the foundation. Like so many other ancient glacial boulders (many of which still lay sleeping underneath the thin surface of this our shallow layer of humanity) these specimens were perfectly preserved in a dense womb of sand and clay until being dug up by a backhoe operator.
Erratics often lie waiting, unexposed and undetected for eons in the thick geological strata of sandy soil that covers much of Southern Ontario.
The moment of 'coming out' for these four boulders probably arrived abruptly. Having existed an eternity under the earth, they emerged and were unceremoniously pushed off to the side of the corner lot. That they will eventually be trucked away from this their ancestral turf, or worse, just shoved into some artless arrangement here beside this hurriedly built edifice of wood and concrete seems wrong.
These strange lumps of matter with their impressive size and great age - may be unappreciated in the mundane muddiness of the construction going on around them. The wonder of their existence is easily overlooked by the busy contractor who having unwittingly uncovered them, merely needs them 'out of the way'.
Perhaps later when the job is near completion the 'better looking' ones will be relegated to a convenient location where they will have to 'fit in 'with the rest of what will likely be a quickly landscaped property. They will serve to compliment a building that will not last a micro fraction of the geological time span the boulders have already embraced!
I believe a thoughtful, more artistic, Zen-like approach needs to be encouraged amongst developers, homeowners and landscapers, concerning these inspiringly mysterious visitors from down under.
We could own all the earth moving machinery on earth but it would still not equal the power of a single boulder to move the human spirit.
