At the beginning of October you can still feel the intense summer heat. This heat evaporates water fairly fast: clouds of vapor rise from the ground to the atmosphere, while the ground tears into flakes divided by erosion cracks. The flake can be picked up with the hand as if it were part of a smashed ceramic plate: the edges of every flake reveal the cracking patterns of neighboring flakes, and at the same time show the fractured continuity of one single terrestrial surface. The course of moving water is seen in the porosity on one side of the flake, drawing notches in the cracks between them. On this floor made of sandy flakes, upon close observation, small circular holes mark the spot where some rain drops fell. The eroded ground of an immense plain stretches out up to Chiconautla Hill. In some spots of this great span of cracked ground, there are minuscule, murky ponds, where some birds dip their beaks to drink water. The birds might be storks, with gray feathers and long beak, standing on thin, supple legs. Mosquitoes swarm around these small ponds, landing on the water and on the birds’ bodies. [...]
Erosion
in ENCYCLOPEDIA