Back in Colorado Springs … where Alice is doing research. It's strange to think that this is the nearest that I have in the US to an Ancestral Home - not one I very much want to claim, apart from the mountains, but I recognize, by now, that familiar sinking feeling of driving into a place, and knowing that, in a way - well, no, it's not in my blood, unlike Batley or Ossett, but that one's curiously and irrevocably linked to oneself, if only by marriage … These thoughts are doubtless prompted by Luci Tapahonso's very moving reading the other night: no way can I lay claim to the spirit of ancestors, the spirit of land in this country. And the spirit of Native Land is a bit iffy in connection to Ossett:
… that's Providence Mill - the family shoddy mill - smoking away, around 1909, I think …)
… and, depicting more or less the same time, here's a recent mural, of the Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek Railroad, back in 1910 … back when the town was growing, and optimistic, and not desperately full of homeless meth addicts, and before - I think - Alice's grandfather had started too many of the practices that helped contribute to the Financial Scandal ...
No comments:
Post a Comment