Quarry Contemplations,
Galleries #1,
#2, #3,
#4
Main
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There it is! Just a short walk down Commerce Street! An unexpected wonder! The elevation drops precipitously, and you stand atop a sheer cliff overlooking a clear pool of water, almost a hundred feet below. Hardly what you expected, so close to Main Street, in this quiet New England village. The sight takes your breath away. Beyond the pool, separated by little more than a narrow strip of land, you see the Connecticut River. |
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Largely ignored, the grand, craggy walls of the Portland Quarries just sit there, like an abandoned monument from the past, whose story is long forgotten. Yet they refuse to be forgotten. They are part of the landscape. Vast. Majestic. Their importance may be downplayed in the hectic world of illusions that we live in, but they survive as a reminder of harsher times, when people were closer to the land, and more acquainted with their own mortality. They challenge our illusions by their sheer magnitude and substance, reminding us of who we are without the aid of our machines. |
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Their legacy lingers within us, for they contributed to the foundation of the world we live in. They helped make us who we are. And yet, the stories they tell come to us in silence, unintelligible whispers that propel us into a nostalgia that belongs to someone else. Tales of another era, of people long vanished, lives we can scarcely imagine. A sketch of ancient gravestones comes to mind, names barely decipherable, still marking the lives of singular men and women, whom we can no longer touch. Yet their shadows linger. Transparent. Like a memory that escapes us. |
| Perhaps it is the passage of time that
instills us with nostalgia, pulling us into a sublime awareness of
something beyond, something mysterious, a hidden truth yet to be told. Life itself is a mystery, no less than the passage of time. What scars will we leave chiseled in rock for the generations to decipher? Can we imagine those coming strangers wondering who we were? What message about life will we leave for them? |
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This beautiful scene, so tranquil to visit, was once a place of heavy labor, of sweat and pain, and sometimes jovial camaraderie. In its heyday, you would have heard languages imported from far across the sea. This was a work-site for immigrants. Swedes. Irish. Italians. People new to this country, working hard to forge a better life than they left behind. |
| The sound of oxen straining at their yokes
filled the air. In winter it was heavy sledges. After a while came the
latest machines, steam-powered cranes loading ships, a locomotive.
Whistles and shouts. The rhythm of hammers. Now the silence is deafening. |
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Photos by John Monroe, National Park Service. |
