Main T.o.C. Change Resist Ground Art

Taylor Graham Under Our Feet Roots unravel. You watched a pumpkin vine tremble before it was sucked under, green leaves and all. Blame it on rodents. Ground squirrels ravage our garden, disappear down holes as if following a thread ever deeper into earth. Nature’s thrill is unseen forces. Gnawing teeth like itchy tectonic plates, our own acres unsteady underfoot. The town sits uneasy on its mining history – Hangman’s Tree with its famous cowboy-dummy swinging high from the façade; the saloon’s reformed now as ice cream parlor, but the building stands rooted in the stump of hangman’s tree. Far below, the Deep Blue Lead, ancient auriferous river that financed the town. History deepens, bedrock in my head. Last week in a Main Street store-front, I saw a gold bezel pendant in form of twisted loop – not quite a hangman’s noose. What keeps us living and awake here? The edge, the fault-zone, tooth of hunger- forces underground.

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