black walnut blues

sometimes i can almost think colour can cure sadness.
i do not know how to hold this.
this scent that is both grief and hope.
this scent of earthy lime.
the black and soft centre.



I have been collecting black walnuts for dyeing. The hard shape, the colour, the scent, are pleasurable, but somehow bring me to tears.

I was at a conference last weekend, co-facilitating a walking atelier. There was a black walnut tree near the entrance to the trail. I gathered all those that had not been cracked open by the fall, observed the maggots hidden in the cracks.

Back in the conference hall, while we were gathered to look at the documentation, a woman came to me with two walnuts wrapped in tissue. Sometimes people notice what we think is  hidden.