Look at my face
Written by John Macpherson
Can you see a face? © John MacPherson
What is this? I ask people.
Some say, “it’s a piece of exotic stone, polished. Probably from Burma.”
Others, “it’s a red cabbage, sliced, sharply, by a good knife.”
A few reliably inform me “it’s petrified wood, from Arizona.”
One asked “is it a strange ice-pattern?”
They are all wrong.
But all see a face.
“I see a face” they say.
And they are right (and were right all along in every answer)
“Twisted and contorted” they say. “It’s like The Scream, by Munch” they add. “Definitely troubled” they all agree. And in this conclusion, they are all absolutely right.
It’s the face of nature.
Drawn in pollen. Wind-swirl whisked around on the surface of a puddle, quietly, on a rural road.
Author — John Macpherson
John MacPherson was born and lives in the Scottish Highlands. He trained as a welder in the Glasgow shipyards, before completing an apprenticeship as a carpenter, and then qualified as a Social Worker in Disability Services. Along the way he has cooked on canal barges, trained as an Alpine Ski Leader & worked as an Instructor for Skiers with disabilities, been a canoe instructor, and tutor of night classes in carpentry, stained glass design and manufacture, and archery. He has travelled extensively on various continents, undertaking solo trips by bicycle, or motorcycle. He has had narrow escapes from an ambush by terrorists, been hit by lightning, caught in an erupting volcano, trapped in a mobile home by a tornado, kidnapped by a dog's hairdresser, rammed by a basking shark and was once bitten by a wild otter. He has combined all this with professional photography, which he has practised for over 35 years. He teaches photography and acts as a photography guide & tutor in the UK and abroad. His biggest challenge is keeping his 30 year old Land Rover 110 on the road. He loves telling and hearing stories.