standley’s chasm

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A vertical photograph looking up from the floor of Standley Chasm, also known as Angkerle Atwatye, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Two towering, reddish-orange rock walls rise steeply on either side, their vertical textures emphasized by the narrow strip of bright daylight that enters from above. The light powerfully illuminates the sandy ground at the base of the chasm and the top of the rock faces, while the rest of the walls are cast in deep shadow. The image conveys a dramatic sense of scale and enclosure within this significant geological feature of Central Australia.

Ms. Ida Standley 
flinty with resolve
first schooled
the mulatto castoffs in Alice
till the attentions of leery townsmen
dogging her female charges 
drove her bulwark westward
to Ray's Creek 
near the chasm  
the namby magma stretchmark
once extruded through quartzite
worn now down to naught
great Australian orogeny
and misogyny alike
bowing to force of nature
leaving the base cleft

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