Monoliths of the field

words from my notebook 15/3/11


The stones were covered after Roger had tilled the land. The field was flat, both in texture and colour - no white spots beaming from the orangey-brown.

It rained last night; the ground wet this morning, a grey sky held down by mist hovers to the south. The field has changed again.

On my arrival at the field this morning I recognised it again. White spots dotted the orangey-brown - a deeper brown than Sunday - the rain had cleaned the stones.

. . .

I wasn't even sure if the stones were still here after Roger had finished. Had they been pushed down under the surface? I wondered to myself, or scooped up and sent to another place? I knew this couldn't really be true - all the stones gone - and I must say I'm pleased to see that today they are back. But for a time they were invisible.

These flecks of white - quartz, granite - give contrast to the field. They contrast visually - the field looks more interesting with them present - and they contrast the use of the land. They pull the land back to what it was before the plough tore it up - Land - the earth! Rocks, soil, clay, grass, roots, plants, insects - life. I wonder how anything is going to grow here, but Roger's family have been farming this land for nearly seventy years, so it must work. But surely you're an unfortunate seed if you end up under one of these rocks!

. . .

I always place myself and my stuff in the top left hand corner of the field when I arrive, under an oak and a hornbeam (?) I enjoy the walk from the path - tight, enclosed - into the field. I always stop and take it in - the expanse of space - and then head up the field with the hedge to my left and stop again under the trees in the corner.

Sitting in my corner on an upturned bucket my gaze again is drawn to the white stones protruding the brown earth. I have been photographing them this morning. Monoliths of the field is how they appear to me today. Having not seen them since Roger turned the soil they appear now as beacons of power, as the resistance of the earth showing us humans that it is not so easy to have things the way we want them. They could have been sown, broadcasted by a hand mightier than our own.

We'll get what we want from this land I suppose. The stones may change direction, spend time underground, but they will always be here. They are rock-solid after all!