At the university in Ohio, Marie declares her major
first as art, then switches to English, music, math,
and finally geology, which her father taught her to love.
She’s one of three women among seventy men.
Geology reveals how land and sea
shifted slowly and long ago.
The earth’s crust might have broken under the forces
of underground waves that made gaps in the land,
tossed boulders that piled into mountains.
Could hidden currents have moved continents?
Most scientists say no. Such massive land couldn’t drift.
As Marie picks up a fossil, she marvels at how a spider
or snail may be forgotten, but millions
of years later, traces and tracks remain in rocks.
She splits open granite and quartz,
but uses math more than hammers and picks.
She studies volcanoes and earthquakes,
which move in waves. The earth never stops changing.
She loves its hidden stories, but she doesn’t believe
she’ll find a job looking for those.
Instead, practical people
want underground fuel to run cars and warm homes.
She’s hired by an oil company to keep accounts,
figuring out answers fixed in place. She’s bored.
At night, she takes advanced math classes to earn
another degree and remember the pleasure of working
on proofs, which show that what’s true once is true always.