The Weight of Stones

A stone does not ask to be moved. It sits, gathering the cold of the earth, waiting for the wind to strip away the moss. We pile them up, one by one, believing that height gives us a vantage point, or perhaps a way to mark that we were here. We build cairns to say we have passed, but the stones only know the gravity that holds them to the mountain. They do not care for the history we carve into their surfaces. They do not care for the borders we draw across the high passes. They are simply weight, resting against the indifference of the sky. In the silence of the high ground, where the air is thin and the frost bites deep, there is a strange comfort in things that do not change. We are the ones who shift, who drift, who disappear. The stones remain, holding their own counsel in the long, grey light.

Tina Primozic has captured this stillness in her image titled Together We Stand. It is a quiet testament to what endures when we are no longer there to watch. Does the mountain feel the weight of what we leave behind?