COVERING THE CRACKS

I am still practicing lettering. I'm using a Tombow brush instead of a pointed pen. 

I like the brush much better.

I find the concentration needed in lettering  similar to setting type for letterpress, ironing, or writing haiku. The small sweeps of the brush remind me of a walk on the Iron Horse Trail. I wrote a poem about my walk as part of an ABCDarian, which is a poetic form that uses each letter of the alphabet to create an A to Z poem.

C

COVER THE CRACKS

Black tar marks scroll down

the asphalt on the Iron Horse Trail.

Like calligraphers,

two workers with a large pen,

swoop across the cracks

pushing out more tar 

letting the last dry brush strokes

peter out across the trail.                     

The ghost of 'yama' -- river --
wanders the path
the tar has sunk in.
Leaves, dust and
a broken pinecone or two
fill in the valleys.

The asphalt conceals the old

railroad line which

covered the horse trail which

covered the deer path which

covered the silt and mud which

covered the bones turned to fossils

deep beneath the asphalt trail.             

Ants near the strokes,

push up dirt from the tiny

caverns they are making.

Dirt from deep down below -- 

fragments of wheat, oats,

manure, glass, bones.

Calligraphy makes you see letterforms in many different places.  Do you see them too?