presence itself

I mentioned several weeks ago, just before we went on holiday, that I was looking forward to reading Robert Macfarlane's new book Underland (as pictured) ...

... I haven't quite finished it, but am thoroughly engrossed deep within its pages at the moment. Here's a paragraph (which I've broken into lines) from the chapter on 'Seeing/Dark Matter':


Seeing/Dark Matter

We all carry trace fossils within us -
the marks that the dead and the missed leave behind.
Handwriting on an envelope;
the wear on a wooden step left by footfall;
the memory of a familiar gesture by someone gone,
repeated so often it has worn its own groove in both air and mind:
these are trace fossils too.
Sometimes, in fact, all that is left behind by loss is trace -
and sometimes empty volume can be easier
to hold in the heart
than presence itself.

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Robert Macfarlane (1976 - )

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