Scattered pieces

Outside, the feel is cool and crisp, a scant dew hangs on every surface, lending a textured contact to steps taken down a gravel path arriving at a steel door propped open to entry. It’s an imposing structure of weathered corrugated steel, and what is referred lovingly to as “the shop.” A sign hung nearby reads, “Studio” as if in defiance of the observable organized chaos of industrial grade scrap steel, stainless, and aluminum might lead one to believe otherwise. Inside, a towering barn door, one-half rolled mostly open, releases a pouring of blunted fittingly grey and steel blue light from an overcast sky to the west.

Looking about the space, among the metalwork in various stages of maturity, and rendered range of creative expression, the available light settles on a steel workbench, by position alone assuming the focal point for activity. Moving close reveals a work surface filled with rusted pieces of metal, except for some scattered about randomly revealing severed ends reflecting back a contrasting industrial metallic sheen.

I think about the not insignificant toil and creative energy spent imagining and manifesting the work that resulted in these as yet unused pieces. A question floats to the top of my thoughts, “Are these just spare parts?” Almost as soon as the thought distills it evaporates with the intuition that nothing would be spare or rejected in this place. In this place it is clear every piece has worth, separate but equal, each with an intrinsic value of its own, and as part of the collective.

I imagine in a parallel universe these pieces reflect an alternate reality arranged in a completely different yet, still meaningful assemblage there. In all of the potentially countless planes of existence I wonder what holds meaning in this rusted randomness in each? Contemplating the endless possibilities ascending and descending in my brain dizzies, especially considering the differing impressions formed in the context of each instance of “me.”

I turn my head a glance over my shoulder, tracing a path across the gritty concrete floor and the contrasting angular geometries between light and shadow stretching outward from their origin toward me. Scanning upward and behind, shifting my view of the work surface to the periphery, I am tracking the sound of a crow cawing. There, just outside the door frame I locate the perch of a black-winged bird, its onyx eyes looking back at me. In our momentary mutual observance of one another, I wonder the trigger for this scrutiny of me. I stand there locked in thought, the crow cawing in my direction, my stare unyielding for what feels like rises to the quantity of minutes. The crow turns its back to me, and with a leap ascends into the grey amorphousness of the weather.

I swallow spontaneously, close my eyes momentarily, commiting the experience to memory before it all falls to pieces. I take a deep breath of the cool air, feel the filling of my lungs and I start to walk, my eyes following my perception of the crow’s skyward trajectory. I mull the meaning of the random arrangement of rusted pieces on the workbench behind me, the chance encounter with the black-winged bird, and as I emerge from the dimness of the space, my eyes squinting under the influence of the sun from behind a thinning overcast, I recall the saying about beauty being in the eyes of the beholder.