Can time
and the passing of it
be so apparent
as when standing on the same spot twice
separated by half a lifetime of years
and the remembering mind
compares, contrasts (perhaps falsely so)
and (re) constructs an image now gone
with the sharp edged reality of today?
In later years
when I became a real geologist
and stopped playing the collecting game
I came to see quarries
as things of power and beauty
exposing the deeper tissues
that underlie the sensitive skin of the world.
As repositories of knowledge and information
To be probed gently with a masseurs touch.
What law protects from the enquiring hands
of a learning child
yet offers none to the brutal claw of the backhoe?
It always seemed to me
that after our short time here
we would simply cease
and rather than our spirit going on
only the vestiges of our physical self
would remain
for the briefest of cosmic moments
Out of seemingly barren ground
at least harsh, exposed, tough,
life has its way of surprising
us who are so much weaker
and always looking for excuses.
Presenting shields which protect and shelter
but also hide from the stark reality of things
mayhap we need our shields to be sundered
so that we may breathe the air
that gives us life
This quiet and secret place
hides like a spurned lover
close to the heart it craves
yet knowing its new place
in the scheme of things.
I tried to crawl here
through wounded pock marked skin
when I was young (and foolish)
but failing my first challenge
and feeling the earth squeezing,
tugging, wanting me back
I turned back (for a while)
to the open skies
and the wind scoured hills
above
A landslip
subsidence
here in little Britain
not in my lifetime.
1977 and the mountain shivers
slurried rock slithering downward
eating the land
and the road that wanders
unsuspecting
across it.
Broken lines like broken limbs
twisted tarmac
revealing yet more layers
of future slippage.
Future slippage
Not in my lifetime?
Either path can be trod
the one wider, more sure
perhaps easier, safer
but it leads to lower ground.
The other
needing a greater effort of will
is less clear, steeper
and more exposed
yet guides to places
where the view is crystal
the vistas more grand
and the next step
more fulfilling
It took a book of years
before that gulf had widened enough
to be called independence.
At first back and forth
free but without requisite skills
relying on the safe harbour and security of home
still learning the game of the adult
without actually achieving
then, in a burst
maturation thundered in
preceding an aging and emergent understanding
and the nest was fled
How can one explain
the need to go back
to stand once again
on that very same track
to pick up those stones
and to gaze at those trees
to ponder bare bones
or fall to ones knees
and lift a fist full of dirt
or a finger of dust
quell a world full of hurt
bury pain so unjust.
To bridge gaps in time
and be back as a child
committing no crime
but still acting wild
that innocent thrill
and a future unknown
on a nonedescript hill
where the seeds were once sown.
How can one explain
that the reason I seek
is to stand once again
within the White Peak
What else is life
but a series of events
that allows us to create memories
recollections of times gone by
inevitably better times than now
or so we believe?
We are guided along
that inexorably tapering path of entropy
unable to grasp the truth of it
day by day
but only through the clarity of years.
Our escalating descent into chaos
checked for just an instant in time
by the force of our melancholy
by the weight of our sinking past
I have always been fascinated
by tracks
and stony winding trails.
Fascinated, intrigued, curious
as to where they might lead.
Always leading somewhere
that draws me out of myself
and into the landscape.
I navigate silently, respectfully,
with a sort of reverence
for the magic of line
spearing the bloated body of the hill
or contouring like a lifeline across the palm
of the earth
Paul Rose Photography | 1699 Taft Street, Lakewood, CO 80215
© Paul Rose 2008