SAPLING #41 — Joining the conversation

Sweden Sapling

Inspired by the book we are currently working on, and by the Swedish landscape during the Björköby residency — written and drawn on location…

The tree tops along the shore rustle like they sway. They are conversing along the slow, lazy lines of their arching limbs. If the forest wants to remember something, all it has to do is wait for the wind to blow from across the lake and join the conversation.

Out here, it is easy to imagine how the waters once emerged from the depths, all by themselves, how the animals came running to witness the lake filling itself up, how the tree-clad shores shouldered closer, so they could be near something so effortlessly profound.

In silence, we are sitting on the shore. We don’t touch, we don’t speak. Yet just like the waves and the tree tops, we are having a conversation. Sounds on paper, lines in the sky, meanings that land on the moss-covered soil and take hold there.

For under the surface, all things are connected, and every journey holds a promise of home.

The SAPLING series is a joint project with artist and illustrator Jurgen Walschot.
Saplings are creative sprouts. I will write to the images, he will draw to the words.