On, In, and Around Mondays: Writing Landscapes
He walks the old ways and pays a toll in skin. The paths are chalk, and his body writes itself onto the landscape, even as the landscape writes itself onto his body.
MacFarlane has taken a fall along The Icknield Way, and somehow I think of my own skin, and the way I sit, on this day, near my daughter's warmth, and our bodies are making a memory—her landscape writing itself on me, mine writing itself on hers.
She listens to my cadence as I read: magnesian limestone, Permian mudstone, Middle Lias, Great Oolite, cornbrash and, yes, London chalk.
I remember when she was tiny and loved to draw on asphalt—chalk in her small hand, colors and visions set down, now long washed away by rain.
"I could see you doing this," I interrupt my reading, bringing memories forward and on into her possible future. My chalk girl. I can see her walking The Icknield Way.
"You can?"
"Yes, I don't know why. I can see you walking this path."
And I know that in this moment, whether or not she ever walks MacFarlane's London Chalk way, that she could. It is within her.
"Take me with you," I want to say.
But I don't.
Her head is on my shoulder. I lean down to kiss her warm face, let the moment write itself onto my skin.
_____
On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place. Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below.
If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)
This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...
Labels: Robert Macfarlane, The Icknield Way, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot
posted by L.L. Barkat at 7:55 AM
8 Comments:
"Take me with you" I want to say. "I don't". Your words here make my eyes feel all wet - this is a powerful pair of lines.
Much of my family's story was written in western sandstone and on granite trails in Maine.
"Let the moment write itself onto my skin."
Leaning into that.
Ahh, there is such poetic abundance here, all chalky white and dusty. I must go back for a second read, spend more time with the beautiful. This, a treasue.
We all leave our stories drawn in chalk on the sidewalks of life. But our hearts don't erase the drawings when it rains in our circumstances. Even when our minds fail to remember, the stories are still imprinted within us.
May God give you lovely drawings in chalk of grit and fancifulness on the basalt or granite or crumbly gravel of daily living.
I want to just tread slowly through this post again and again. Beautiful. Achingly beautiful.
what a lovely image of you with your girl etched in my mind as I read...thank you :)
This is so beautiful, Laura! Thanks for sharing your love and your thoughts in these poetic words, & thanks for hosting!
God bless,
Laurie
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