Erratic

Sometimes a glacier holds 
a piece of mountain
between its knees for miles

Before getting too hot
tired or bored to carry it any farther

You can still see these lonely stones
stranded far from their mountain home
prairie grass blowing past on all sides

glacial erratic is a glacially deposited rock differing from the type of rock native to the area in which it rests. Erratics, which take their name from the Latin word errare (“to wander”), are carried by glacial ice, often over distances of hundreds of kilometres. Erratics can range in size from pebbles to large boulders such as Big Rock (16,500 metric tons) in Alberta.

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