Scarification | New essay by Nell Smith
"I kneel with the memory of your warm hand on my skin and unsown lands spread in my imagination..."
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Today we’re back with Scarification, a new essay and photograph by writer and field biologist Nell Smith:
Scarification by Nell Smith | Artwork by Nell Smith
Seeing you now, after an absence that had seemed indefinite, I don’t know what to do with my hands. Bare and creased with soil, I hook them into my pockets so they don’t hang at my side like dumb rocks. The space between us grows thick with questions.
All summer, crowds have come to the canyon in steady currents, yet I’ve only felt small and solitary; deeply rooted is that particular form of loneliness that blooms in company. I kneel with the memory of your warm hand on my skin and unsown lands spread in my imagination. Every day I water and weed and watch the light change across striated stone blotted with juniper and cliff rose; formations I can put names to…
Read Scarification.
Featured writer Nell Smith is a writer and field biologist based in Arizona. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Environment & Natural Resources from the University of Wyoming, and her writing has been published in both literary and scholarly publications. Her current project is a multigenre collection exploring the personal and environmental negotiations of love and belonging, excerpts of which have appeared or are forthcoming in Electric Literature, Southeast Review, Camas, Pidgeonholes, Flyway, and elsewhere. She works to cultivate reciprocal relationships between the arts and sciences, and can be found at www.nellsmithwriter.com.
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