when rocks look like tears...

a 1930's RPPC featuring a somewhat pathetic looking black hills rock museum, i am guessing the black hills south dakota, but not sure which state this might be from. initially i picked this up because it reminded me of robert smithson's work, particularly the earlier site works, but also the piles of dirt with mirrors, etc. and of course, because of the utter strangeness of the image of a small house with a sort of messy garden of rocks, a far cry from ian hamilton finlay's little sparta (although both are loved by me through image as having equal value...).

tonight, as i was looking through a pile of photos, i discovered the image again, and couldn't help but see these forms as tears. i've enlarged the small mountain of tears, and i think enlarged it looks a bit too much like rocks, but if you look at the complete photo, where scale is real and relative, maybe you can see what i'm talking about. as if some giant tears had fallen from the sky, perhaps from clouds crying, and these forms of multiple tears exist simply; as if the tears had fallen into certain places, and upon certain things, including sometimes other tears. one wonders if there was so much pain in the sky what sounds might have accompanied such crying.

the other thing is the idea that tears turn to stone and exist for us always as a kind of stain of memory. here one has to navigate all of the sadness of one's life as a series of humble monuments just to get to the entrance of the museum. if one is fortunate, or strong enough, to navigate the larger tragedies of their life, one gets to enter the museum, where perhaps the remainder of tears are smaller, like books or hair clips. then, once in the protective shell of the shack, one sees tears that are not only built from smaller tragedy, but tears of happiness and love.

in a small display case, with cracked glass and worn wooden edges, there are some of the simplest microscopic murmurings, quiet yearnings unrealized, and things a bit sad but also forgotten tears that were shed when the crying was less audible than a whisper, a tear as a presence of quiet breath...