Weymouth House (sideview from lawn)

Joel McLendon Log House, c.1760

Mount Carmel Road, Carthage, N.C.

Old Scotch Burying Ground, Carthage, N.C.

It was not too long ago that the place was a burying ground twice over—for the dead long interred there, and also for any memory of them. The surrounding pine, holly, oak and sweet gum, accompanied by time, broke many of the gravestones in turn breaking names back down in letters and dates back down into digits—hands too likely helped in the despoiling, taking away pieces of work carved carefully one, two, and two and half centuries ago to hold a spot loved ones thought would remain unharmed. The restoration is still ongoing. It probably can’t be complete—though the woods could completely encompass it, though later looters could completely plunder it, the burying place itself must always be maintained as it breaks, weathering amidst safe keeping, becoming illegible even amidst attention, such is the debt to the dead (though one they’d never come to collect if unpaid).

Intersection, Eagle Spring Road

Pine Inhabited Building, Eagle Springs

Two Views, Eagle Springs, N.C.

Path, Roots, Pines

Evening, Weymouth Woods Tract

The last light of the day catches on the trees as if to prolong its own burn...

Pines on Pine Barrens Trail

As the path rises out of the sweet gum swamp it levels onto the pine barrens where every pine in sight wears a blackened mask just above the ground, their visages looking back with a bearing of aloof injury. The wounds are not from turpentining, but basal scars likely given from past lumbering—timbers skidded down hill punching and scraping all the other trees still left standing probably because they were too young to harvest. Then later when the woods, now a place of recreation, were burned to abate undergrowth and encourage new pines to grow, the scars would have been charred by the low fires. These trees then tell of two stories, one of forest unmaking the other of forest remaking.

Grace Elizabeth Hale on Dawoud Bey

Cat-faced Longleaf, Weymouth Woods Tract

Moccasin Crossing Bridge

Trunk, Weymouth Woods Tract

Leaves, Fern, Yellow Root, James Creek

Shelter, Pine Island Trail

Cloud, Trees, Dark Waters, Weymouth Woods