cjonthehudson
Footprint in the Rain
The mind is an odd thing, isn’t it. It goes where it will, quickly and without warning, and sometimes it takes the heart with it.
I saw Carl’s photograph — this cast of a single footstep solidified in concrete, filled with colorful storm-cast detritus — and my mind went instantly to a poem by W.S. Merwin. From there it ricocheted to San Leandro, California and a small stone monument on a southwest facing slope near the top of Fairmont Ridge in the Lake Chabot Regional Park. It’s a memorial to all the Alameda County children who’ve died by violence since 1994. Merwin’s poem is a permanent fixture in the memorial.
Carl’s photograph wasn’t shot anywhere near that memorial, and it has nothing to do with children or violence. But it speaks to the permanence of stone and the impermanence of beauty; it speaks to the fragility of life and the constancy of memory; it speaks to the heart and the mind, and the mind goes where it will and sometimes it takes the heart with it.
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
Separation / W.S. Merwin
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
