Jose Snook

Hollowing the Hill.
 

This quarry has been a noisy grumbling presence for most of my life. Situated in the hilllside  500 yards from my childhood home. Back then it was much smaller  but its presence still over hung each day. Too often shrill sirens would  warn of the impending blast. With each one the earth would quake and the house would shake. Sometimes sharp boulders would pound down onto the field or back yard, thrown 1000's of feet through the air. We'd  go and look at the lump of granite sat in it's small crater and imagine what might have happened if someone had been hanging washing on the line, or filling a bucket from the yard tap.

For me the quarry was a pink scar spreading over on the hills, a shuddering  full stop in the green flow.  And so I'd pray that during the night,  something  or, someone would pour black ink onto the hill, staining the rock , making it useless. The prayers were unanswered, and the quarry continued to spread backwards and down wards , and now it moves forwards.  Hollowing the hill.

My mother loves the quarry, the way the evening sun makes it glow and how it shows her where home is  from 30 miles away. But for me some of those childhood yearnings remain.  "Make it go away, make it stop, make the land whole again." And so, in my imagination, I pour black ink over it to still the eternal hollowing and pause the daily stream of  trucks that drag away the shattered hill.